


Even If It Kills Us (but it wont hopefully)

by Greenninjagal



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate universe - Mafia, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Needs a Hug, Betrayal, Blood, Deceit and Virgil act like siblings but with more murder, Dee judges how you cut your pancakes, Guns, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Logan kills some people, M/M, Patton is a Badass, Patton is trying his best, Violence, Virgil's mom is a bitch, and a nap, bullet point fic, dirty cops, poor parenting, you ever keep a secret from your best friend for literal years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: “My family is the mafia,” Virgil says after another shuddering couple breaths. He drags a hand over his mouth and tries to scrub the hysterical smile off it, “My family is the mafia and they are trying to kill me.”***aka ordinary college student Virgil gets the rudest awakening of his life when he suddenly finds out that a distant relative died and left him the heir to a mafia family he didn't know existed. Now all he has to do is find out who he can trust and who is quite literally trying to stab him in the back.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 59
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this seems really super familiar, its because you probably saw it on my [tumblr!](https://greenninjagal-blog.tumblr.com/post/182250091532/even-if-it-kills-us-but-it-wont-hopefully)

  * Virgil finds out he’s going to die a lot sooner than he expected to.
  * which is unfortunate for several reasons, but mostly because _hello?? He liked living??_
  * It starts when--well Virgil isn’t sure when it really starts. Because he’s been feeling off for _weeks_ but for all he knew it could have been long before that.
  * All he knows is that one minute he was normal.
  * Then someone was trying to kill him.
  * Also that Patton, was actually crazy. 


  * (which Virgil knew already because Patton hung out with _Virgil_ after all, when he could have been doing literally anything else. It was just that this time he had proof that Patton was crazy)
  * But the thing is he’s been feeling off, and his best friend and roommate (whom Virgil suddenly can’t think of a time when he could exist without the peppy, optimist by his side), Patton suggests they go out and do something. 
  * “It’s probably all the stress, Kiddo!” He said, “Why don’t we go to the movies or something?”
  * Virgil’s first instinct is to say no, because that costs money and he’s a broke college boy but then Patton gives him those puppy dog eyes
  * the next thing he knows he’s walking down the sidewalk with his arm hooked in Patton’s.
  * (Two years ago that would have been a problem, but now-- now...its alright)
  * Virgil isn’t even sure what movies are out, but Patton seems happy. Everything is alright as long as Patton is happy.
  * That’s when he gets the feeling again: the _everything is about to go super wrong_ feeling.
  * His phone chimes with a text message from his mom. His mom never texts him. Virgil’s stomach does a flop and he pauses in his step, dragging Patton to a stop as well.
  * ~~Virgil hasn’t talked to his mom in years: hasn’t had a nice thing to say about her in even longer. She had tried to cut him off from the world, tore up the acceptance letters from two of his colleges, and refused to let him outside most days. They hadn’t parted ways on a happy note.~~
  * She wants to know where he is. He doesn’t tell her.
  * She tells him to go back inside and lock the door.
  * ominous as fuck.
  * Virgil waits for her to tell him why. She doesn’t respond. 
  * It’s a bad feeling that Virgil gets in his stomach, but he turns and sees Patton’s slightly upset look and he knows he can’t go back to his dorm.
  * They have a movie to see after all.
  * (That was one of two warnings he gets really)
  * ((he wonders what would have changed if he had listened))
  * The other warning is much more abrupt. Virgil walked right into it.
  * “Excuse me, are you, by chance, Virgil Sanders?” 
  * Virgil stares at this guy: he can’t been much older than him or Patton, most certainly a college student, but he’s dressed like he walked off an award ceremony: crisp ironed dress pants, shoes that shined in the street light, a flattering polo tucked into said pants and a tie. His glasses were black frames for his no-nonsense expressionless eyes.
  * Virgil immediately wants to back away.
  * “He is!” Patton! says! brightly! “Who are you?! I like your glasses!”
  * The man straight up ignores Patton. His eyes have been set on Virgil for too long and his skin itches at the attention. “It’s imperative,” The man says, “that you come with me right now.”
  * Virgil can’t even choke out a “why”
  * It’s alright though because Patton is smiling again, “Oh sorry! No can do! We have a movie to catch!”
  * “That was not a suggestion.”
  * “We just don’t have time!”
  * “Make time.”
  * “Can’t! Sorry! How about tomorrow?” Patton is already pulling Virgil by his arm, and they are already by the man. “Bye!”
  * Except the man reached out and catches Virgil’s arm--which is a big No-No.
  * Virgil moves out of reaction rather than an intent. The man grabs his around and Virgil’s wrist rotates in a countercircle. Before the man even know what happened, Virgil has the grip reversed and the man’s arm is bent back, wedged between his own shoulder blades.
  * “Don’t touch me.” Virgil says. He lets go, because he doesn’t like human contact.
  * (Pat doesn’t reach out for him. Virgil’s fingers clench into fists)
  * “Let’s go,” Virgil says.
  * They leave the man there, strangely startled. 
  * (”It is a matter of life and death!”)
  * ((They ignore him))
  * Because no one touched Virgil without his consent.
  * “Are you alright?” Patton asks
  * “I’m fine.”
  * “We can go back.”
  * “Let’s just go see this movie.”
  * Which is a distraction and they both know it. Both of them are relieved when they do just that.
  * Virgil doesn’t know what movie Patton picked, but he handed over his credit card to pay for it. He holds his breath, as he waits the infinity it takes for the card reader to ding its acceptance. 
  * He makes a note to check his balance soon. He’s not sure how much is in there.
  * Patton laughs as they enter the building twirling in a circle in such a Patton way that Virgil can’t help but let the rest of his tension fall away.
  * “Virgil!” He says, “Popcorn! We can share a big bowl!”
  * “Soda too.” Virgil suggests, to which Patton crinkles his nose because _thats not good for you Virgil._ But in the end of a two minutes bickering Patton relents and buys a soda.
  * Virgil smirks.
  * Then
  * Someone girl behind them screams.
  * Virgil whips around and finds a gun a foot away from his head.
  * That’s it.
  * the barrel of a gun pointed right at his face, a finger pulling on the trigger, black darkness, an earth shattering explosion.
  * “ _VIRGIL!”_
  * It takes him a second--a second too long to realize he wasn’t dead.
  * Patton’s limbs tumble over his as they hit the ground in a cumbersome mass, but they were alive and breathing.
  * Virgil’s head swings up to see that guy from outside the theater grappling with the gunman, both fighting for control over the weapon that was pointed at the ceiling. It discharges again taking out the light.
  * Everyone is screaming.
  * Someone is yelling for the police. 
  * Virgil grabs Patton’s arm and hauls him to his feet, and they flee the scene.
  * Another gunshot goes off. The glass case promoting some new poster over Virgil’s shoulder shatters. 
  * His heart thunders louder than any scream, his mind blares noise, endless noise, and he can’t think of anything other than _run_ and _patton_
  * _Because someone was trying to kill him._
  * He shoves Patton in front of him as they round the corner. He stumbles over a cardboard display for some space rover movie. He hits the ground.
  * Patton screams.
  * Virgil looks up just in time to see someone else with a gun emerging from the shadows in front of them blocking the emergency exit-- their exit. 
  * Virgil realizes that he’s about to die.
  * It’s far too soon.
  * Then Patton throws himself in front of Virgil. Arms out like a guardian angel.
  * _Virgil can’t think of a time before there was Patton, can’t think of where’d he be without his best friend, can’t think of what he’d be if Patton had never reached out a hand and asked to be his best friend._ _Virgil suddenly can’t think of a time when he could exist without the peppy, optimist by his side--_
  * An explosion decimates the screaming in his head.
  * But it came from behind his back, and then all of a sudden the man trying to kill Virgil slams to the ground. He doesn’t get back up.
  * Virgil turns around.
  * The guy from outside is there again. holding a gun like he does this everyday. Virgil can’t breathe.
  * The man looks down at them, eyes stern and stiff. There’s blood on his tie, flecks on his glasses. Patton’s fingers dig into Virgil’s shoulder.
  * “Do you think you can--perhaps-- make time, now?” He asks, in the most pretentious tone Virgil has ever heard. “I assure you it’s quite important.”




	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The window is already down and the driver is smirking something awful. “Get in!”
> 
> The man who had saved their lives, stops short, “Absolutely not!”
> 
> The driver laughs good-naturedly and pulls a gun from somewhere. “How about now?”  
> ***  
> aka Virgil gets...saved???

  * Virgil thinks hes going to throw up.
  * Because this man is holding a gun– _a gun_ and he just killed a man
  * (regardless that the other man has just been trying to kill Virgil)
  * He just killed a man like it was nothing. Like it was a simple chore.
  * Virgil chest heaves and it feels a lot like trying to inhale his own tongue. There are alarms and screaming and people trying to kill him and Virgil doesn’t know why but he knows this isn’t the time to be here.


  * _fuck he can’t breathe_
  * Patton’s fingers wrap his arm holding him to this reality like an anchor but Virgil thinks that this can’t be real. It can’t be real.
  * There’s a dead body on the floor a few meters from them.
  * But it can’t be real.
  * “Virgil,” The man says, “You need to breathe. This is not the time nor the place for a panic attack.”
  * Patton– _Patton–_ growls at him. It’s surprising because Pat is the nice one, the flowered crowns, the puns, the sweaters and the warm hugs. Virgil is the one who hisses at people who get too close. 
  * But this is Patton who just stood in front of Virgil to save him from being potentially shot and Virgil thinks that he came _so fucking close to losing the best person in his life_
  * And he can’t exhale. His lungs scream.
  * “Virge,” Patton says quietly, “breathe with me.”
  * “We don’t have time–”
  * “Shut up!” Patton snaps. It’s not like him. Virgil breathes in and it feels a lot like claws dragging through his chest. 
  * He does it again.
  * “I’m okay,” He rasps out as if saying it out loud would make it true in any sense.
  * “Excellent,” The man deadpans, “It’s time to go.”
  * “Where?!” Patton demands, “And who are you?!”
  * “The man who just saved you life.” He responds distastefully. “That’s all you need to know. It’s time for you to leave.”
  * “Excuse me?!” 
  * Virgil is certain he’s never seen Patton like this. If he wasn’t already scared beyond belief, this would definitely be the thing causing him a panic attack. He’s already shaking all over, his whole body. 
  * (If pat lets go hes sure he’d shake himself apart)
  * “This doesn’t concern you anymore.” The man says, “Its a family matter.”
  * Virgil has never seen the man before today.
  * “People got shot!” 
  * The man considers his gun for a second and Virgil was certain he was going to shoot Patton too. “Yes, that is because they are the enemy. And quite frankly its time for you to step out unless you want to be shot at again.”
  * “I’m not leaving Virgil!”
  * “I don’t have time to argue this with you.” The man says, “Your blood is on your own hands, not mine.”
  * It sounds like a threat. 
  * Patton squeezes Virgil’s shoulder.
  * Another form comes crashing around the corner behind them, but Virgil barely has time to register who they are before the man has fired two shots and they drop. It’s effortless. He fires again but the chamber is empty.
  * “Time to go,” He says.
  * He reaches out for Virgil’s arm and then stops himself– “Can you run?”
  * Virgil nods.
  * They run.
  * Everything in Virgil screams that they were going to be shot, killed. But the man seems rather confident as he shoves open the exit door, eyes darting the outside.
  * They aren’t more than a foot outside before an _expensive_ red sports car is plows over the curb and blocks their easy exit. 
  * (Virgil doesn’t know a lot about cars, but fuck is this one nice)
  * The window is already down and the driver is smirking something awful. “Get in!”
  * The man who had saved their lives, stops short, “Absolutely not!”
  * The driver laughs good-naturedly and pulls a gun from somewhere. “How about now?”
  * There’s several gunshots from behind them. The glass door to the theater shatters.
  * “ _Fuck This,”_ Virgil breathes and because these people aren’t the ones currently trying to shoot him, he grabs the door handle and throws himself into the car. Patton lands sideways in his lap.
  * The man looks absolutely scandalized, “You cannot–!” 
  * “Get in the damn car, Logan!” The driver shouts, “What’s the worse that can happen?”
  * “You’ll get us killed!”
  * The man–Logan– gets in the car anyway.
  * Several bullets hit the door as it closes.
  * The driver laughs again, and Virgil is pretty sure he’s _having fun._ He presses the gas pedal to the actual floor and the car just explodes. Virgil hits the opposite door and Patton tumbles off the seat to the floor.
  * “I swEAR!” Logan yells as the driver spins out of the parking lot going at speeds that were illegal for a good reason. They nearly collide headfirst with three different cars but they were already gone by the time the other drivers even honked their horns.
  * “Ooh! Tails!” The driver called, checking his mirrors casually and running a red light. He tosses his gun in Logan’s lap, “Do you mind?”
  * “You are a terrible driver!” Logan snarls at him. 
  * Virgil digs his hands into the leather seats. His stomach is in his throat as Logan leans out the open window, and fires again and again. Virgil can see him through the other windows, and his cold and calculating look that tightens when their driver makes an unexpected jerk of his wheel. 
  * He can’t hear a thing.
  * Then Logan throws the gun, having emptied it, into the open air and climbs back in their car with curses tumbling off his lips.
  * “ _Who_ taught you how to drive?” He snarls.
  * “Did you get them?” The driver asks unbothered.
  * “no I left them– _of fucking course i did. I’m not you!”_
  * Awesome. Virgil who’s never even jaywalked before, realizes that he is in a car with two strangers, both of who had guns and knew how to use them, not to mention their driver had already broken at least fifty driving laws. 
  * _what the fucking hell_
  * “Ouch harsh,” The driver laughs though, he reaches up and tilts the rearview mirror, “How’s it going back there, Sanders?”
  * “I’m going to throw up.” Virgil says. It’s not a lie.
  * “Hey, watch the leather, Jack Smellington, I just got her cleaned!”
  * Then for some ungodly reason Patton starts laughing too.
  * (Further proof, Virgil thinks, that Patton is crazy)
  * “Wow!” Pat reaches up and fixes his glasses, “I didn’t know the movie was in 4-D!”
  * “This is not a movie!” Logan hisses but his seriousness is in stark contrast with their drivers booming laugh. 
  * (it’s different now, Virgil can’t quite put his finger on why, but it just sounds different)
  * “Who’s the puffball?” The driver asks, “I like him.”
  * “Patton Pater!” Patton!! says!! brightly!! “I like you too! What’s your name?”
  * “Roman Prince!” He says, “Resident Knight in shining armor!”
  * “A reckless playboy, with far too many cars and not enough rules.” Logan corrects with a sneer, “This is not your business, Prince.”
  * “It is when the next heir is as cute as he is!”
  * Virgil’s heart stops, “what?”
  * “i said you’re cute! Do you swing my way?”
  * Logan turns around in his seat. “Ignore him,” He commands, but Virgil gets the feeling Roman is not going to let that stand. “Based on your reactions in these past few minutes, I’m going to assume that you have no clue what is going on.”
  * Virgil’s throat is so dry he can barely breathe again, “Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?”
  * Logan sighs and takes off his glasses to clean them _which is not an answer._
  * Roman zooms onto a freeway, “Did you even introduce yourself, Specs?” 
  * (Virgil absently wonders why there are no Police cars chasing them down)
  * “My name is Logan. Sanders.” Logan says slowly, “We’re cousins.”
  * “That’s…” _impossible_ is on the top of Virgil’s tongue, but he then remembers how cagey his mom always was when holidays came up. He knew he had relatives, _somewhere_ but he had known better than to ask after the first time. “….alright.” 
  * (it’s not alright. Its very, _very_ far from alright.)
  * ((Patton takes his hand and its enough support for Virgil to remember to exhale))
  * “Excellent,” Logan replaces his glasses. If it weren’t for the blood on his tie he could have been a TA at their college. “Our family is a mafia.”
  * Roman jerks the wheel and Logan’s head slams into the head rest. Patton lets out a yelp. 
  * “Sorry Padre!” Roman shoots a sideways glare at Logan, “Really? Spock, there were a hundred other ways to break it to the kid. He looks like he’s going to faint. We’ve talked about this.”
  * “You talked, I did not listen because I do not want any misconceptions to arise.” Logan hisses, “I don’t want him to think anything other than the honest truth!”
  * Roman’s smile quirks viciously, “Oh that would be just awful wouldn’t it.”
  * Virgil doesn’t like the connotation of that.
  * He doesn’t like any of this.
  * ( ~~Part of him is horrified because he can understand it?? Why does it make sense to him?? His mom obviously never wanted anything to do with this part of his family, how she tried to keep him at home, how she always seemed to be looking over her shoulder, too paranoid to let him out of her sights. Part of him wonders if he always knew this, always knew something just wasn’t right.)~~
  * “What does that have to do with Virgil?” Patton asks innocently. 
  * (Virgil knows he does that on purpose: its a load question and Patton is the barrier between it and Virgil himself)
  * Logan clenches his jaw, “It has to do with Virgil, because Virgil is the only other viable heir.”
  * “….what?”
  * Virgil’s voice is dry and broken. He had to have heard wrong. This wasn’t, couldn’t be real.
  * “Three nights ago the head of the family, Thomas Sanders, was murdered.” Logan says and then pauses.
  * “Murdered?” Patton repeats.
  * “Most of the family thinks it was our rivals–”
  * “Rivals?” Virgil interrupts, “You mean that’s who trying to kill me?”
  * Roman laughs, “God, that would be ironic!”
  * Logan makes an annoyed noise, “No the Prince’s aren’t the ones attempting to kill you. Though they should keep to themselves as this _does not include them._ ”
  * “I can drop you off right here if you want.”
  * Virgil makes a noise in the back of his throat.
  * Roman meets his eyes in the rear view mirror, “Chill out, Winter Sulker! None of my family’s going to touch you without my say so. _I’m_ my families heir.”
  * “Then who is trying to hurt my kiddo?” Patton asks, “And _why_?”
  * Logan clicks his tongue. “Thomas well…
  * “He named you, Virgil, heir to the family, although it is not logical in any sense–” He stops himself again seeming to remember who he was speaking to. “You are Thomas’s heir and therefore are slotted to take over. And unfortunately, not everyone in the family is… _agreeable_ to this course of action.”




	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His phone. 
> 
> oh my god his phone
> 
> He could call the police!
> 
> what the fuck were the police going to do  
> ***  
> Virgil has a break down

  * Virgil laughs.
  * There’s nothing funny about it, about this, but here he is _laughing_
  * Actually there’s a lot funny about it: Virgil is a normal college student, he’s just barely managing to scrape his grades together, he’s still undecided, he’s sitting in the back of a fiery red sports car that could probably pay off his college debt while two strangers he’s never seen before have broken several laws and _murdered_ people. It’s funny the same sick, twisted way that a circus accident might have been funny.


  * “This is not a joke!” Logan says sternly.
  * “Pull over!” There’s a reason why Patton is Virgil’s best friend.
  * Roman hesitates, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding the rear view mirror.
  * Virgil is laughing until he can’t breathe, until his lungs are on fire, until his ears are ringing. He laughs until he can taste blood in his throat
  * And then he throws up.
  * His throat burns, his eyes water, his ears pop.
  * He curls in on himself as if that could stop the world from spinning so fast, just give him time to breathe. To inhale.
  * “Don’t touch him!”
  * He wonders briefly when he got on the solid ground again, when he got out of the car. 
  * His hands scrap through roadside gravel, the sharp edges of the rocks cutting through his jeans and littering his legs in jagged scraps. Dirt layers beneath his nails.
  * “We don’t have time to linger at this location!”
  * Virgil heaves another breath through his tightened lungs.
  * “Virgil,” Patton’s voice says softly from right beside him. Not touching.
  * (Virgil’s certain if anyone touches him right now they’d melt like Virgil was made of acid.)
  * “’mfine,” He digs his fingers into the rocks again and lets the pinpricks of pain clear his head.
  * “’m fine.”
  * “He is clearly not fine!” Roman yells from behind them.
  * “He can be not-fine somewhere that’s not the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere with no coverage.” Logan hisses.
  * Virgil spits out the acrid taste of his his own stomach acids and takes another breath. “I’m fine.”
  * From what Virgil can see– which isn’t much because the only light is the interior car emergency light from the open door a few feet behind them– Patton doesn’t believe him. His eyes are large and sad and Virgil thinks lamely that his best friend should have been panicking a bit more.
  * ~~(but if Patton had been panicking, Virgil wouldn’t be able to center himself, wouldn’t be able to focus, wouldn’t be able to breathe right now. He can’t let himself lose it. Not here, not now, not when there’s a chance Patton might get hurt because of it.)~~
  * “My family is the mafia,” Virgil says after another shuddering couple breathes. He drags a hand over his mouth and tries to scrub the hysterical smile off it, “My family is the mafia and they are trying to kill me.”
  * “That’s the spirit, Marilyn Morose!” Roman sings. Virgil turns to look at the heir of another mafia, who was crouching outside the front wheel of his car running a hand over the fender of his car with a pout.
  * Roman sighs loudly, “You owe me a new paint job, Calculator Watch!”
  * Logan sneers at him from the passenger seat, “I do not owe you anything! You were the one who made the foolish decision to bring your favorite car to a shoot out!”
  * “Alright next time I’ll let you die! What do you say to that?!”
  * “That would be a blessing and a half!” Logan snaps, “I hate dealing with you!”
  * They bicker. Virgil loses track of it when Patton leans closer to him and he forgets not to flinch.
  * Patton retracts himself immediately, with an unspoken apology. “Virgil, kiddo,” He says in a voice so low Virgil almost doesn’t hear it over Roman’s loud offended tone.
  * “Do you trust them?” Patton asks.
  * as if Virgil can answer that.
  * “If you don’t, we can leave now,” Patton whispers. As if it’s really just that easy. Maybe it is.
  * Virgil looks up in front of them, away from the highway. Several more yards away is a thicket, and then woods that lead who-knows-where, filled with who-knows-what. As far as Virgil know neither of them have ever taken a survival course for what to do in the middle of the woods at night, but the way Patton looks at him right then…
  * the way Patton has refused to leave his side, the way that Patton knows him, knows when to touch and when to not, knows what to say…
  * Virgil wants to cry because Patton could have had a normal life, a normal night, if it hadn’t been for him. And now Patton refers to them together, as a “we” because he has no intention of leaving Virgil behind.
  * Neither of them might have ever had a survival class before, but Virgil doesn’t doubt that if he gave the word Patton would lead them into the woods and make sure they make it through the night regardless of what challenges they face.
  * Logan had killed a man right in front of them. 
  * Roman had probably caused six car crashes to get them out here in the middle of nowhere.
  * Virgil shouldn’t trust them, because trusting people is what gets others killed (his mom’s favorite phrase). Trusting people is a weakness, trusting them is like asking to be shot in the back of the head the second you turn around.
  * But Virgil’s been kneeling on the side of the road for a few minutes now and both Roman and Logan haven’t made a move towards him, against him, haven’t done anything other than try to protect him.
  * “Do you?” Virgil whispers to Patton instead of answering his question.
  * (Virgil trusts Patton. He trusts Patton with his life.)
  * Patton’s lips quirk for just a second. “I think I do, kiddo.”
  * So if Patton trusts them, then they are to be trusted. 
  * Virgil feels a vibration in his pocket that makes him jump.
  * His phone. 
  * _oh my god his phone_
  * He could call the police!
  * _what the fuck were the police going to do_
  * Virgil isn’t sure. He pulls it out anyway. Another text from his mom. Too little, too late.
  * He stares at the notification until the screen goes black again.
  * He understands now, a bit. Why she acted like him leaving the house was a suicide march, why she never talked about family, why she nearly tried to stab Patton with a knife when Virgil announced he was moving out to live with his best friend.
  * He doesn’t forgive her for it.
  * Because maybe if she had told him any of this before tonight, he might have done something different.
  * Like taken a wilderness survival course and disappeared off the face of the earth never to be seen or heard from again.
  * He knows what the text message will say. Knows that she’ll be telling him to come back to her, telling him that she’s the only one who can protect him, telling him that he’s only safe with her.
  * Virgil’s heard it all before, in different contexts, in different times.
  * Before Patton can say anything, Virgil drags himself to his unbalanced feet. He winds back.
  * And he throws his phone as far as he can into the woods on the highway in the middle of nowhere.
  * He falls back to the ground because his balance is shit, and he’s the very definition of unstable.
  * “Virgil!” Patton yelps loud enough to get Logan and Roman’s attention.
  * “I’m fine!” He says.
  * It’s still a lie. But he thinks he’s getting better at telling it.
  * “I’m the heir to a mafia family I didn’t know existed until today. My family is trying to kill me for it. The only people I trust at this moment are a frat boy-”
  * “HEy!”
  * “–and a robot assassin–”
  * “Falsehood!”
  * “–and my best friend who makes a bombass flower crown.”
  * Patton giggles, “I can do a little more than that, kiddo.”
  * “I am sure you can,” Logan says in a dismissive, irritated tone, that low key kinda makes Virgil want to hit him. “If you are finished freaking out, might we get back into the car and go before someone is smart enough track us down?”
  * “You’re so uptight, Teach,” Roman says, “But, he has a point. I drive fast but it’s not going to take them long to catch up.”
  * “And it will take them even less time to kill all of us.” Logan added.
  * “Get in the car, please. This is not where I want to die.”
  * Virgil is shaking from head to toe by the time he crawls to his feet again. Patton gives him another look, a shrug that suggests they can still run if Virgil is having second thoughts. 
  * “Where do you want to die?” Roman asks Logan, patting the hood of his car. “The library?”
  * “It doesn’t have to be the library,” Logan says with a twitch of his nose, “Just anywhere not surrounded by idiots.”
  * Roman laughs.
  * Virgil looks at Patton and gives a slight shake of his head. No running. Not now.
  * Virgil feels a bit like he stepped through a mirror to a second world, an alternate universe. 
  * Before today, he had never even seen a real life gun, much less known how to keep someone from killing him with one. But Logan does. And Roman risked– _risked?–_ something by coming to save them. 
  * He doesn’t belong here, in this world that Logan and Roman know so well, and if he tries to get himself and Patton out of it without help, Virgil knows it won’t end well for them.
  * So he shakes his head at Patton and he climbs back in the car. 
  * Weary and faint, and unfortunately aware that his mouth tastes like stomach acids.
  * “Finally,” Logan says. He holds out an unopened water bottle to him, and Virgil isn’t sure where he got it in the first place. He takes it.
  * “Where is your phone?” Logan asks, as Patton and Roman climb in too, the latter with a loud verbal complaint on the bullet nicks on his car. Patton giggles.
  * “I threw it.” Virgil says between gulps of water.
  * “Pardon?” Logan seems surprised.
  * “I threw it into the forest.” The bottle crackles in his tight grip, “I’ve seen enough crime TV shows to know the GPS can be backtracked or whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s gone.”
  * Roman throws the car out of park while Logan struggles to find words. Patton tugs on his seat belt pleasantly, and then the car is speeding off.
  * “That was an unnecessary wastes–” Logan starts,
  * “Chill, Sir Nerdius,” Roman cuts him off, “He’s the heir to a criminal empire. I _think_ he can afford another phone.”
  * “A waste–”
  * Patton leans forward, “Better safe than sorry, right!”
  * “Will you shut up!” Logan snaps at him.
  * Patton just smiles at him and leans on the back of Roman’s seat, innocently. “Oh I didn’t mean to interrupt. Sorry, LoLo!”
  * Roman guffaws. 
  * “Do _not_ call me that!” Logan snarls.
  * “ _Please_ keep calling him that!” Roman howls with laughter. “Oh my god, _LoLo_!”
  * “Crash this car. Now.”
  * “Say, where are we heading, _LoLo_?”
  * “Desist with that horrible moniker!” Logan demands, “And I have several safe houses–”
  * “Stopping you right there!” Roman waves a hand, “We’re going to mine.”
  * Virgil watches Logan silhouette get within inches of actually strangling their driver before the man gets hold of himself.
  * “My locations are specifically picked for situations such as–”
  * “Yeah, I might trust you, CLo-P0 but you’re family is another matter. You can’t seriously think that none of them know about the apartment the Heights, right?”
  * “Why do you know about my apartment in the Heights!”
  * “Therefore we’re going somewhere significantly safer!” Roman moves the rear view mirror again catching Virgil’s tired eyes in the reflection, “What do you say, Panic! at the Everywhere?”
  * “I don’t care where we go as long as we don’t die getting there or after we get there.”
  * “Are you always this dark and gloomy?” Roman turns the mirror again, “Padre! Can I show you my car collection? It’s spectacular! I have a baby in the same soft blue as your sweater! You’ll love it!”
  * “Oooh!”
  * Virgil hears Logan mutter under his breath, but he doesn’t immediately insist they change their course for something like Canada.
  * It’s not great, he’s not fine. But for now Virgil tugs the sleeves of his jacket over his hands, pulls his legs up on the car seat, and curls into the car door. His eyes droop heavily as the last bits of adrenaline and focus fades
  * He trusts the others to a degree, to the point where he felt that they wouldn’t try to get him killed in the next few minutes at least.
  * Virgil falls asleep listening to Roman talk about his cars and Patton answering politely and Logan grumbling under his breath.




	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought that had meant, like, Roman had a safehouse or two
> 
> maybe a condo? stocked with the barest essentials or an abandoned apartment building
> 
> He wasn’t expecting to wake up to Roman’s entire fucking mansion  
> ***  
> Roman shows off how rich he is. Virgil cried in broke College student.

  * He _expects_ to wake up with a gun in his face
  * well not really
  * he expects to wake up on his desk back in his dorm with seven and a half empty energy drinks next to him and Patton making those concerned noises in the back of his throat.
  * Because he expects that the entire night had been some insane, chemically induced, fever dream that he can forget with a lot of coffee and a long conversation with Patton about _anything else._
  * If that wasn’t an option, Virgil expects to wake up with a gun to his face, with just enough time to think _fuc–_ before Logan/Roman/someone pulls the trigger and Virgil’s lovely brain matter splatters all over the car seats.
  * Or maybe they’d let him crawl out of the car and they’d kill him in some remote warehouse and throw his body into a harbor 
  * like in the movies
  * Virgil recalls, vaguely, that Roman said “We’re going to mine.”
  * He thought that had meant, like, Roman had a safehouse or two
  * maybe a condo? stocked with the barest essentials
  * Or an abandoned apartment building
  * He wasn’t expecting to wake up to _Roman’s entire fucking mansion_


  * “Welcome to mi casa!” Roman finds a pair of shades somewhere and puts them on.
  * (It’s nearing one in the morning. why????)
  * Despite that, Roman’s _casa_ is bigger than the entire dorm building back at their college. Virgil can’t see much given the lack of light, but its massive. They drove by two fountains just to get to the garage, which, because Roman is just that extra was _fucking underground_ with a door that rose up _like the Batcave._
  * “Hideous, isn’t it?” Logan says. Virgil thinks he’s talking to him.
  * “You’re just jealous!” Roman sings as he drives down the brightly lit curved ramp to a parking garage. “I actually use the money I make!”
  * “I use my money as well!”
  * Roman snorts, “Right my bad! I did notice that was a new tie.”
  * Logan glances down at his tie– still splattered with blood from earlier. “You noticed?”
  * “Of course!” Roman says, “What do you take me for?”
  * Patton sways in his seat facing Virgil with a toothy grin. His freckles seemed to have multiplied in the change of light. “Isn’t this exciting, V?”
  * Virgil shrugs because words are hard and he’s still tired 
  * and trying to figure out why Roman took them to his own house.
  * Aren’t they rivals?
  * Won’t his family try to kill him?
  * “I live alone!” Roman says as if he can read minds. He parks the car among a couple others arranged in a rainbow order.
  * “Just when I thought your gross misuse of finances couldn’t get more distasteful.” Logan sneers as he throws open his door.
  * “You love it!”
  * “I hate you!”
  * Patton giggles which sends a warm comforting feeling through Virgil.
  * (He still can’t believe that Patton is here with him, that Patton didn’t run off, that Patton didn’t save himself.)
  * ((Guiltily, Virgil wonders if he would have done the same thing. ~~He doesn’t like the answer he comes up with~~ ))
  * Virgil climbs out of the car, and Patton follows him a second later, mouth gaping with awe around the cavernous area.
  * There are a bunch of cars. Virgil doesn’t know the name of any of them.
  * Roman stops by his front tire again, huffing at the noticeable white dashes in the red. He rubs a thumb over one, wistful.
  * Virgil thinks he should just be happy they aren’t dead.
  * “V! Look!” Patton’s voice echoes in the empty hall, “It matches you!”
  * Its a purple car. Dark purple with decals in a laser vibrant purple. The windows are dark tinted. It looks more expensive than the red one they just climbed out of.
  * Virgil is mad about how much he likes it at first glance.
  * “You can have it,” Roman says.
  * Virgil whips to look at him.
  * “What? You obviously like it. I’ve had my eye on different purple Maserati for a few months.” Roman waves a hand. He strolls over to a wall of keys and grabs one from the hooks.
  * And throws it at Virgil.
  * He catches it out of instinct. And immediately drops it on the ground, because _he’s never held anything that valuable before what the fuCK–_
  * “What about you Padre?” Roman says, “See anything you like?”
  * “Roman!” Logan yells, “Stop throwing your resources around! It’s late and I would like to sleep.”
  * Roman sticks out his tongue at the other man, and throws an arm around a giggly Patton, “What is the point of amassing my babies if I can’t dote on my friends? You can still have the power cruiser–”
  * “I’ve told you before I don’t need a motorcycle!”
  * His face is surprisingly pink for that statement. Logan straightens himself. fiddling with his tie. “I appreciate the offer, Prince. But if I wanted it, I would have bought myself one. I don’t need your charity–stop, stop that!”
  * Roman smiles and lowers the hand he was using to mock the other. 
  * Virgil smothers the urge to laugh, it rises up into a sharp cough that he isn’t nearly as good at hiding.
  * Roman looks delighted.
  * “Okay, okay,” he says, “Inside we go.” He hooks Patton around the waist and leads him towards the area where Logan was, like its Prom night.
  * “And hey, Amethyst Alarm,” he calls over his shoulder, “either keep the keys or put them back on the wall.” He shoots a grin that makes Virgil’s stomach do a flip for some stupid reason.
  * Virgil grabs the keys off the ground and storms over to the wall.
  * _how dare he just give Virgil a fucking car_
  * _He doesn’t need a flashy purple car_
  * He needs to not be dead before the end of the week.
  * Owning a car like that? riding in one?
  * Virgil’s driver’s license is mostly for show: he walked everywhere he needed to go.
  * He puts the keys on the hook.
  * Somehow they end up in his pocket. 
  * _Fuck_
  * The inside of his house is just as big as the garage.
  * “It’s not much…” Roman has the audacity to say right to Virgil’s face.
  * _Has he ever seen a college dorm room._
  * Virgil has grown up just barely getting by. Raised by a single mother, _in this economy?_
  * Until Patton came along Virgil had always assumed he’d go straight into the work force rather than try for a college. 
  * And standing in the kitchen of Roman’s mansion, part of him is just barely resisting the urge to wrap his hands around Roman’s neck and give him a shake.
  * ((The other part feels like he just started living Ouran Highschool Host Club)) 
  * “Is anyone hungry?” Roman says, “I can’t cook but there’s stuff in there. Oh! wait we can order pizza!–”
  * Logan bats the side of Roman’s head, “This is no time to just be eating! And we are not ordering a Pizza! That’s just asking for unwanted access to the building. We need to figure out what we are going to do to keep Virgil safe until he is ready to take over.”
  * Virgil’s stomach does a bad drop thing. Because then he remembers that despite the fancy cars and the huge house and the excess of money, Roman and Logan both do things that are super illegal.
  * And _hello_? _Virgil doesn’t want to go to jail_. 
  * They killed people. Virgil has trouble disposing of the spiders that find their way in the room even when Patton is frantically begging him to obliterate the “creepy crawly death dealer”.
  * “I can cook!” Patton says brightly before Virgil can voice any of those thoughts in his head. 
  * Logan opens his mouth to say something, probably demeaning and rude.
  * “It’s okay!” Patton is quicker, “You guys must be all tired! I’ll make something quick to eat and you guys can talk about all that business stuff! Then we can go off to bed!”
  * Logan looks like he just wants to argue because he can.
  * “Sounds great, Pat,” Virgil cuts in because really he is tired.
  * “Fine,” Logan huffs. He waves around the kitchen, “At least you’re useful for something.”
  * “Can you not?” Virgil snaps, “He’s been more useful than you have!”
  * “Pardon?! I–”
  * “It’s okay!” Patton says, “I don’t mind, kiddo! Cooking helps me think!”
  * “And not being around fools helps me think,” Logan turned away from them, “Prince, you have an armory, do you not? I would like to re-equip myself.”
  * If Virgil had to guess Roman’s expression reads “this is a bad idea”, but he forces a smile, and claps his hands.
  * “Excellent idea! Come along my dear Orchid Offense! We must find you a weapon as well!”
  * “Don’t call me that,” Virgil says.
  * He glances back at Patton, who is already sorting through the (well stocked) pantry with a grin. It doesn’t feel right to leave him behind. 
  * ((when was the last time he went somewhere without Patton?))
  * But Logan is already out the door and down the hall(?) and Roman tapping his foot impatiently. 
  * Virgil goes.
  * It feels wrong. Bad.
  * Roman prattles on about something. Virgil’s hyper aware of how close they are standing, how Roman’s hair does this stupid wave when he combs it back with a hand, how his sunglasses comes off his head and hang off his collar like some frat boy and Virgil is left staring at eyes burning with a warm passion.
  * Logan walks a few steps ahead of them, moving like he knows this place. His glasses catch on the light which prevents Virgil from seeing them.
  * His shoulders are tense though, tense and and angry and frustrated.
  * “What’s your deal with Patton?” Virgil asks him, effectively cutting off Roman.
  * Logan sends a glare in his direction. “Pardon? I don’t have a “deal” with your cardigan clad clout.”
  * “Could have fooled me.”
  * “I’m not fooling anyone,” Logan’s terse response should have had the hairs on Virgil’s neck rising. Instead it just makes him angrier.
  * “He is a liability,” Logan says, “Your friendship with him– particularly your unwillingness to tell him to go home is frustrating to me. He isn’t part of this situation. He would be safer if you would cease communication with him all together.”
  * He turns around at the end of the hall, standing somewhat in the shadows and appearing very threatening. they are face-to-face again.
  * ( _Blood on his collar, blood on his tie, tense shoulders, and powerful hands_ )
  * Roman’s voice dies in his throat at the expression on Logan’s face.
  * “You, Virgil, would be safer if you ceased communication with him all together.” Logan says, “Because the second anyone outside this room finds out your unwillingness to sacrifice him, they will use it against you. I don’t even trust Roman to not one day use this information to his advantage–”
  * “HEy!”
  * “–This family is all that I have.” Logan says, “This is all I have known. You are to be the new leader of it, and I cannot afford to follow a leader who can be blackmailed.”
  * “Have you considered that I DON’T WANT TO BE YOUR LEADER!” 
  * It appeared as if the thought had, indeed, _not._
  * Virgil stands toe to toe with Logan, every terrible feeling in his stomach swirling into toxic thoughts. He can’t bring himself to take a step back, to put more space between them, to give into the itch of his skin that feels like a million bugs burrowing into his veins.
  * Because he doesn’t want this
  * didn’t ask for this
  * not Roman’s cars, not Logan’s loyal following or whatever he thinks this is
  * Virgil wanted to live to see Twenty-one, to graduate.
  * He wanted to hook his arm with Patton’s and stroll down the street to the movies and eat too-salty popcorn and drink overly expensive soda and not be shot at.
  * Mafia family? Thanks, but no thanks. Virgil is a struggling college student with no family. He thinks he prefers it, to half his family trying to kill him because of some guy Virgil never met died.
  * Logan stares at Virgil his dark eyes searching for something.
  * Virgil doesn’t know what, doesn’t care, _doesn’t_.
  * Then Roman laughs. It shatters the tension between the three of them like a sledge hammer, and it isn’t pleasant. It’s the laughter he had used back when he first pulled up on the side walk and told them to get in or die.
  * “Take a breather, Sanders,” he says unkindly. Virgil doesn’t know if he means Logan or him.
  * “You’re both acting like this is the end of the world.” The other heir to the rival mafia family breezes by the two of them to a random door and pushes it open. “For one, Lolo, your job is like the least dangerous.”
  * “Does your stupidity know no ends?” Logan shoots back, “My job is the _most_ dangerous. I handle the _money_.”
  * Virgil’s 95% sure he misheard.
  * “I’m sorry, you’re an _accountant_?”
  * Because if the _accountant_ killed a bunch of guys, _what the fuck could the rest of the family do?_
  * Logan’s ears turn red, “I prefer the term bookkeeper!”
  * “Oh yes! Such a _fear inducing_ nickname, Calculator Watch!” Roman rolls his eyes, “Beware the bookkeeper! He can do three digit division while drunk!”
  * “Shut up!” Logan snarls at him. He shoulder checks the other out of the way and pushes into the room Roman motioned for their needs. “It was one time–”
  * Virgil looks at Roman who had a Cheshire smile curling off his face. “No it wasn’t.”
  * Virgil doesn’t even know where to start unpacking that statement.
  * Honestly, he’s still digesting the fact that Logan is a glorified four function calculator and not some experienced hitman/assassin/enforcer combination.
  * The armory, is well, an armory? 
  * Virgil’s never been in an armory before.
  * Four walls each with a multitude of weapons on them: more guns than Virgil has ever seen, a whole section dedicated to swords, axes, javelins– where did Roman get all this stuff? 
  * Nevermind Virgil didn’t want to know.
  * Logan scampers to the guns without much of hesitation. His fingers ghost over his options before he takes one off the stand and considers it.
  * Roman dances around the walls, absolutely delighted. He pauses at the swords, and Virgil swears he hears the term “precious-es” drop from his mouth.
  * Virgil drifts.
  * His eyes catch on a few of the blades, although they all look to be ceremonial. He tries to remember the last time he carried his knife with him. High school? No it must have been when he moved out for college. His mother always insisted that if he was going to go out, he’d have a knife with him. 
  * He had left it on his bed, certain that the blade and his mother could keep each other better company than he ever had. 
  * “Help yourself!” Roman tells them, “I have plenty–”
  * “ROMAN!” 
  * Virgil turns at the sound of Logan’s _scream._
  * ~~(because it isn’t a yelp, isn’t a yell, it’s a scream full of a raw emotion and panic and Virgil didn’t know Logan was capable of that.)~~
  * And then there’s a gunshot.
  * because there’s always a gun shot.
  * Virgil blinks.
  * One second Logan is standing in front of a rack of guns then next both he and Roman are on the ground and there’s someone else in the room dressed from head to foot in black with smiling Mardi Gras masks. 
  * the light panel behind Roman and his swords shatters.
  * Logan’s gun raises and he fires, but the shot goes wide from his awkward angle. 
  * The intruder fires again and this time he doesn’t miss.
  * Logan _swears._
  * And Virgil is just standing there, frozen, like someone watching a terrible, horrible movie. By the time he remembers to move there’s three more guys in the room all armed, Logan’s gun is on the ground, and he’s gripping his shooting shoulder with a murderous look, and there’s no escape. 
  * “Who the fuck!” Roman demands, from his spot on the ground. His sun glasses had skidded across the room and Virgil watches at they go _crunch_ under one of the men’s boots.
  * “Roman Prince,” One of them says, “And Virgil Sanders, it’s time you are both dethroned.”
  * _~~Virgil hasn’t even been on this throne more than five hours~~_
  * The man doesn’t seem to care. He and his buddies raised their guns.
  * “No!” Logan yells, blood pouring down his arm.
  * Virgil stares down the barrel of a gun. Knife in his hand and knows that he’s too far away to do anything, not enough practice recently to be able to throw it, not enough, not enough.
  * He can see their fingers on the triggers–
  * And then a frying pan slams into the back of one of the men’s heads and he drops like a wet sandbag to the floor. 
  * Virgil watches without being able to breathe as someone– _someone_ kicks the knees out of another guy and his shots explode right up the wall behind Roman leaving him unharmed.
  * _someone_ jams an elbow into another’s throat and then slams his head with another intruder. 
  * _someone_ palm strikes the last man in the gut and when the man doubles over _someone_ breaks them over his knee. 
  * Then Virgil, Roman, and Logan are left staring at Patton standing over four unconscious men with a dangerously bright smile that highlighted the faint markings of bruise on his left cheek and a frying pan in his right hand.
  * “Sorry kiddos! I may have made a bit of a mess in the kitchen!”




	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My best friend doesn’t know how to—” Virgil jerks towards the kitchen because he’s not even sure how to state what he’s looking at without screaming, “Not the Patton I know! So who the Hell are you?!”  
> ***  
> aka Virgil starts asking Questions he doesn't want to know the answers to.

  * A bit of a mess, in Virgil’s mind, was dropping a plate, or spilling some flour, or burning some toast, all of which Virgil had seen Patton do before and giggle as he cleaned up without much fuss.
  * Roman’s kitchen was not “a bit” of a mess.
  * It was was a WHOLE mess.


  * Virgil counts three men in Mardi Gras masks, and another whose mask was discarded the chaos. On enemy is sprawled on the counter leaking from pellet sized holes in his back. Another is pinned against the wall with kitchen knives by his clothes head hanging low and ever muscle limp. Another is on the floor surrounded by broken china, lots of blood, and several forks in unsavory places. Virgil can only see the leg of the last one, caught in halfway in the hall and he’s not sure he wants to see the rest.
  * Two of the kitchen cabinet doors are broken off their hinges, several plates of food are splattered across the remaining counter space, every step comes with the _crunch_ of glaces or porcelain or the _squelch_ of a red liquid that smells metallic.
  * And Patton stands in the middle of it washing a frying pan and asking if anyone would like some eggs for dinner.
  * Even Roman seems stunned to silence, with one arm around Logan holding him up despite the other’s suddenly quiet insistence that he was fine.
  * Logan’s bleeding from his shoulder, his shooting arm and he’s not ambidextrous but he refuses to leave the armory without his replacement gun. 
  * Virgil’s knife feels very stupid and heavy in his sweatshirt pocket, right there next to the keys to a very fancy car he doesn’t need.
  * Roman grabs the tablecloth from the ornate kitchen table and throws it off– dumping away the shattered shards from the chandelier that had made its final resting place on one of the chairs.– and placing Logan in it’s place
  * far more gently than Virgil would have thought a man like him was capable of
  * Logan swears, his face pinched with pain. 
  * Blood bleeds over his fingers, too slow, yet too much.
  * “Keep applying pressure,” Roman says before disappearing.
  * “I know how to handle a gunshot wound.” Logan snaps.
  * it’s missing the usual bite.
  * he doesn’t sound like a trigger happy accountant anymore. He sounds like someone who just got shot and it trying not to black out from the onslaught of pain.
  * The specs of blood on his tied were brown compared to the scarlet oozing from between his fingers.
  * Patton steps neatly over one of the bodies and finds a new frying pan– one that hasn’t hit other people.
  * “Eggs?” He asks nicely.
  * Virgil thinks he’s asking him.
  * Maybe?
  * Virgil’s stuck somewhere between staring down the barrel of a gun for the umpteenth time and realizing that Patton downed eight fully grown men with guns and training by himself. 
  * _Patton_
  * It doesn’t– Virgil can’t–
  * This Patton that’s standing in front of him with a bruise on his cheek has the same smile as the boy who at age seven plopped himself down next to Virgil asked if they could be best friends for no reason other than Virgil looked so cool!
  * the boy who dragged Virgil from his last class freshman year of high school and sat him in outfield of the baseball field to teach him how to weave yellow dandelions into flower crowns.
  * The same boy who plucked one of the spherical wish blowers and told him with the most conviction that Virgil could do anything he wanted to.
  * The same boy who had weathered every one Virgil’s moods, who had never been more than a phone call away when Virgil needed him, who had been the only one Virgil trusted with everything.
  * He can’t for the life of him figure out who the man in the kitchen surrounded by unconscious or dead enemies is.
  * “Virgil?”
  * Virgil’s staring at him trying to unsee it– trying _desperately_ to unsee the sight before him.
  * For his sanity.
  * “Virgil!”
  * because he had spent his entire life with Patton, held hands with him, had eaten meals with him, had shared a room with him. He had seen Patton cry over a squirrel who had danced too close to the road side. He had seen Patton steal an extra piece of bread from the dining hall so he could share it with the kids in the park to feed the birds. He had seen Patton’s careful hands thread close the rip in Virgil’s favorite jeans.
  * He _thought_ he knew Patton better than anyone else in the world.
  * But Virgil…
  * Virgil is struck by the most terrifying thought of his entire life– more terrifying than when Patton had thrown himself in front of Virgil at the movies, more terrifying than when Logan had announced their family was trying to kill him, more terrifying than when Roman had stared wistfully at the bullet scratches on his car like he wanted to be back in the firefight.
  * Virgil is suddenly struck by the idea he might know Logan and Roman better than he knows Patton.
  * Because Patton is staring at him right now and Virgil doesn’t recognize him with bruises on his skin and a his shoes splattered with a foreign substance.
  * “VIRGIL!”
  * Virgil grabs the wall to steady himself as his knees suddenly find themselves magnetically attracted to the polished floor. His head knocks the cream colored wall.
  * He can’t remember ever going over to Patton’s house as a kid, can’t remember any awkward weird meeting with Patton’s parents, can’t remember Patton ever talking about his family.
  * He can’t remember.
  * He doesn’t think he ever knew.
  * Patton is standing in front of him and Virgil feels like they are strangers on the street. 
  * Except that strangers on the street don’t know each other favorite foods, or favorite colors, or the way they like each other’s eggs.
  * The room spins.
  * Patton is kneeling right next to him, his freckles barely noticeable in the dim light, his glasses dotted with fingerprints. He’s close, but there’s still space between them.
  * Because they are strangers, but they are strangers who know that _Virgil is not to be touched._
  * “Who are you?”
  * It kills him to say every word. It kills him more than any gun ever could.
  * Because Patton was the only person he thought he could trust, his best friend, who apparently knows how to fight just as well as Logan and Roman.
  * And he can see Roman and Logan in the background, both of them freezing at his tone, at his question. Roman with cloths and bandages and Logan with too much blood for a normal person.
  * “Kiddo?” Patton says– and _fuck_ Virgil wants to take the words back out of the air. Patton kinda laughs- a laugh that was born from disbelief and dread, barely longer than a breath.
  * “It’s me. Patton?”
  * And for some reason that’s not comforting.
  * It’s not a safety net for Virgil as he falls.
  * It’s the hands that pushed him off the edge.
  * “No!” Virgil spits, “No it’s not!” 
  * Virgil doesn’t get _mad._
  * He doesn’t.
  * Not when his mother tried to knife Patton when Virgil announced he was moving out, not when his Public Speaking teacher tried to fail him for having anxiety, not when Logan spoke down to him and Patton for not immediately blending with Logan’s ideal thug life.
  * But the feeling in his stomach bubbles like some sort of soda that Patton’s words just pushed Mentos into.
  * “My best friend doesn’t know how to—” Virgil jerks towards the kitchen because he’s not even sure how to state what he’s looking at without screaming, “Not the Patton I know! So who the Hell are you?!”
  * “Virgil–” Patton starts, lip wobbling.
  * “Stop that! You don’t get to cry!” Virgil shouts, “Those are dead people! You didn’t blink an eye! So don’t you _dare_ cry because I asked a question I should have asked years ago.”
  * “Virgil–” Roman says
  * “Shut up!”
  * “Virgil.” Logan’s grits out between his teeth, “Now is not the time–”
  * “Did I ask for your opinion?” Virgil snarls.
  * “I–” Logan stutters, “No. However the situation is far more delicate than we previously–”
  * “I don’t fucking care.”
  * Logan’s mouth snaps shut. Virgil’s not sure if it was do to the wariness that came from blood loss or if its because he might have finally found whatever he was looking for in Virgil’s eyes.
  * He turns back to Patton, aware of each of the seven inches between them.
  * Patton’s smile, drops. Virgil thinks its chilling how tiny the number of times he’s seen it happen is.
  * “I wanted to tell you.” He says.
  * As if that explains it all. As if that’s a band aid he can slap on to make everything better again.
  * “I hate– I really hate lying.” Patton says. Virgil thinks that true, except that if he really hated it he _wouldn’t have done it_
  * “You weren’t supposed to ever know,” Patton looks up at him, something akin to regret in his eyes. “Thomas said it was just a precaution.”
  * “ _Thomas_?” Roman and Logan’s voices both break equally sharp at the comment.
  * “As in Thomas Sanders, who was murdered three days ago, Thomas?” Roman says.
  * “As in Thomas Sanders who left Virgil as his heir, Thomas?” Logan follows pale in the face from pain or from shock.
  * Patton’s face answers the question more effectively than actual words.
  * “He asked me just to look out for you.” Patton says quietly, “Just in case anyone tried anything against you or your mother.”
  * Virgil’s nails dig into the wall paint. “Like a bodyguard.”
  * “i know what you’re thinking!” Patton says, “But it’s not–
  * “This whole time–”
  * “I swear it’s not like–”
  * “–you let me–”
  * “Virgil please!” 
  * “YOU KNEW!”
  * Patton silences like all the oxygen in the room had cut off.
  * “You knew,” Virgil repeats, himself, “You knew about my family, about all this? And you didn’t tell me?”
  * “None of this was supposed to happen–”
  * Virgil scoffs, “So that makes it okay?! What the hell, Patton! YOU PRETENDED TO BE MY FRIEND!” 
  * “I _am_ your friend!”
  * “I don’t know who you are!” Virgil snaps, “All I know is that apparently some guy I never met told you to watch me and now he’s dead! You’ve been by my side since we were _seven_. What was a seven year old supposed to do against the mafia?!”
  * Patton rubs his neck, “You’d be surprised.”
  * “Fuck you,” Virgil says and he thinks its the only time he’s ever said it to Patton and meant it. 
  * “Kiddo,” Patton says.
  * “Fuck you. All of you.” Virgil says. “Fuck this family, fuck being this heir!” He dragged himself to his feet so fast that Patton had to scramble back to avoid being stepped on. 
  * ~~Part of Virgil was pleased to see the spark of fear in his eyes.~~
  * “I DIDN’T WANT THIS!” Virgil yelled.
  * “You have it anyway,” Logan said.
  * Virgil grabs a plate fragment from the floor and _hurls_ it at his head. It misses by a millimeter and shatters against the wall behind both him and Roman.
  * “HEY!” Roman yelps.
  * Virgil wonders what it would be like to throw his knife again. What it would look like sinking into Roman’s shoulder so that he and Logan could match.
  * “Virgil, wait!” Patton begs, scrambling after him.
  * But Virgil isn’t in the mood. Patton gets too close, and Virgil’s mind is too fogged up with anger at his life, his family, _Patton,_ to think. Patton gets too close.
  * And Virgil’s knuckles connect with Patton’s face. 
  * there’s a _snap_ as Patton’s glasses break. 
  * a _thud_ as Patton hits the ground again.
  * a _ring_ of stupid satisfaction in Virgil as he towers over the person who was his friend and feels his fist pulse with an angry pain.
  * Virgil thinks maybe for a moment he can see the old Patton there, staring in bizarre wonderment at an ordinary thing: staring at the halves of his glasses like they were a foreign object.
  * Blood blots up at the bridge of his nose where the edges had cracked.
  * Virgil turns and this time no one calls after him.
  * The next thing he knows he’s on the road, driving. Somewhere. Anywhere.
  * And the inside of the purple Maserati is just as nice as the outside.
  * It’s nearing three in the morning and he blows down the highway without a destination in mind. 
  * There’s no one to stop him.
  * It’s just him. Alone.
  * He hasn’t been alone since he was seven.
  * Patton had known who he was all that time, what he was. He had known more about Virgil’s family than he had. He had befriended Virgil and somehow that felt like the biggest insult of all.
  * Because Virgil wasn’t a person, Patton hadn’t picked him over any one else in the class. He was a mission and Patton had succeed in it.
  * They had only ever been friends because some guy Virgil didn’t know–never would know– had told Patton to be his friend.
  * His knuckles cry as he tightens his grip on the steering wheel and blows by a speed limit sign that portrays a number forty miles lower.
  * Whatever.
  * Virgil’s at the end of his rope anyway.
  * He doesn’t know where he’s going. Other than “away”
  * He goes, goes, goes.
  * And somehow he finds himself throwing the car into park at an empty rest stop on some curving mountain road. He can’t remember if there were any mountains were he’s from. He doesn’t really care either.
  * It’s hours later, and the anger in his bones drained out onto the road. All that’s left is a numbness that should be terrifying but it just feels comforting now.
  * He’s not at the top of the mountain, but it’s still a pretty decent view.
  * Virgil turns off the engine. Pulls out the keys. He gets out of the car and sits on the hood.
  * And he watches the sunrise. 
  * There’s no one that he can see for miles. 
  * He’s alone. 
  * And Virgil throws his head back and screams as loud as he can. He screams until his eardrums burst, he screams until his lung ache, until the noise in his head matches the empty way he was feeling. He screams for every time he let Patton touch him, for everything time Patton smiled at him, for every time he had thought that his mother was crazy for saying he couldn’t trust anyone. 
  * He screamed for the life he wanted so bad. He screamed until the sun had turned from a blood red to a golden light and he felt a little bit better. 
  * His chest heaved.
  * He stared at the sun daring it to fight back, daring the deities to give him something else to scream about.
  * “Quite some lungs you got there,” A voice says from behind him.
  * Virgil whips around.
  * There’s a boy there, his age, wearing black leather. He’s leaning against an emerald green motorcycle, with a black helmet in his arms. gloved hands, black stud earrings and silver rings in the helix.
  * Virgil didn’t here him come, but he seemed to be content to let Virgil go on.
  * His eyes are heterochromatic, one brown, one green.
  * “We have a couple of things to talk about, Virgil.” He says.
  * “How do you know my name?”
  * “Intuition,” The boy responds, “Also I try to keep up with the news. I can only assume the new person driving one of Roman Prince’s cars is going to be the newly named heir to the Sanders empire.”
  * “Who are you?”
  * “Full of questions are we?” He smiles, like a snake. Then he reaches behind him for something.
  * It turns out to be a gun. ~~Virgil’s not sure why he was expecting anything else.~~
  * “I’d call us cousins,” He says, “I’m Dee Sanders, the _other_ heir.”




	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s go for a ride,” Dee says like it was a suggestion. “Leave the keys with the car. I’ll have someone deliver it back to Roman with a gift.”
> 
> “A dead body in the trunk?” 
> 
> “A fruit basket actually.” Dee smiles.  
> ***  
> Virgil and Dee have a talk about who killed Thomas Sanders

  * It just like him, Virgil thinks, to have driven for _hours_ in a direction that even he didn’t know, only to end up once again with a gun to his face.
  * He’s really getting tired of being constantly afraid for his life.
  * “Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle, Virgil?” Dee asks pleasantly. Virgil thinks he hates the way the other says his name.
  * “No,” He says.
  * “That’s a shame.”
  * Virgil isn’t sure what that statement was supposed to mean. Dee has a gun pointed at him, no one else for probably miles, and more clearly more money than Virgil has ever had. If he killed Virgil right now, no one would be any wiser.


  * Despite that, Virgil refuses to admit he wishes Patton was there, or Logan or Roman. 
  * Somehow he’d always known it was going to end like this.
  * With Virgil standing alone, looking death in the face. What would the others have done anyway? Logan couldn’t shoot, Roman’s insults were hardly able to disarm an opponent, and Patton was quick but without the element of surprise, Virgil doesn’t think he stood a chance against the other.
  * All Virgil has is himself, the keys to a car that wasn’t his, and a pocket knife he hadn’t practiced throwing in a very long time.
  * “Let’s go for a ride,” Dee says like it was a suggestion. “Leave the keys with the car. I’ll have someone deliver it back to Roman with a gift.”
  * “A dead body in the trunk?” 
  * “A fruit basket actually.” Dee smiles, “Roman loves chocolate covered strawberries.”
  * That’s not surprising. Virgil wonders if Dee can see the way his hands are shaking when he pulls the keys from his pocket and drops them on the hood of the car.
  * Still he has absolutely no intentions of joining this stranger on a joyride.
  * Virgil has no doubt that if his mother saw him right now she’d kill him herself for forget every lesson she had ever taught him. For trusting Patton, for allowing himself to get so caught up in his emotions that he didn’t notice Dee had been behind him the entire time.
  * Virgil walks towards the other boy, shaking from head to toe, hands in his pockets. His stomach flops. The numbness and exhaustion squeeze every unneeded thought from his head.
  * Just focus on what he needs to do to survive.
  * Dee has to shuffle his body to get back on the bike. Virgil is four steps away when he decides to move, when he decides to blink, when the attention shifts from Virgil and the gun to himself.
  * Virgil springs forward with his own knife drawn. 
  * He knows how to do the move, it was the first one his mother had ever taught him, the one she had drilled into his head with hourly practices, and too many nights without dinner when he didn’t do it perfectly. He hadn’t needed to use it since he had moved out, hadn’t done since that night.
  * But his muscles remembered it. His adrenaline made it impossible to forget. 
  * The gun drops from Dee’s hand.
  * Virgil’s knife goes to Dee’s throat–
  * There’s a weight at his gut. Virgil freezes, his blade millimeters away from slicing through Dee’s larynx.
  * Dee grins, the same way a snake does right before he devours its prey. 
  * “Interesting,” He says, with a lick of his lips. His different colored eyes match Virgil’s smile far too smug for someone who was a paper’s width away from death.
  * Dee presses his own knife further into Virgil’s lower abdomen. Virgil can’t remember if there’s anything important there. He doesn’t like the look on Dee’s face.
  * “I had wondered what Thomas saw in you,” Dee says.
  * “Thomas never met me.” Virgil tries not to breathe too hard when Dee uses his blade to force him to retreat another step. He stands up, ignoring how his helmet slips straight from his lap to the gravel ground.
  * “I’m sure that’s a loss. After all, it’s not like you just tried to stab a man you just met.”
  * The gun on the ground shines in the early morning sunlight.
  * “There’s not a lot about you, Virgil Storm Sanders,” Dee speaks. “Barely anything at all. You’re mother did a good job of hiding you away. No outstanding awards, no doctors notes, she didn’t even claim you on her taxes. No after school clubs, no recreational teams, no community service. Even your school transcripts barely exist.
  * “If you died right here, no one would know you ever existed.”
  * Virgil’s not surprised at all. His mother never did things halfway.
  * “For the past four days, I have been _trying_ to understand what Thomas was thinking.” 
  * Dee moves swiftly, catching Virgil’s extended arm and twisting his wrist until the borrowed switchblade released from his desperate grasp. Dee shoves him back roughly, and Virgil’s feet slid on the rocky ground. 
  * He loses his balance.
  * Dee towers over him, caught in the glare of the sun: his eyes are hard and unforgiving, his smile no longer amused, but dangerous, his knife held at just the right angle to spell doom for Virgil.
  * “What makes you a better choice than me, Virgil?” He asks, “Why did Thomas decide someone who barely exists deserves to be the new leader?”
  * “I don’t know.” Virgil spits.
  * “You don’t know,” Dee mocks, “You’re just an innocent little college student who doesn’t know anything.”
  * “I don’t!”
  * “I don’t believe you.”
  * Virgil isn’t sure why that statement makes him so _angry_. It wasn’t the same Mentos in Coke anger that Patton had created. No this was deep reaching, pickax on coal type of anger. It didn’t bubble or fizz, it was just _there._ Rock hard and set in his entire being, as if his mother had taken all of her own misery, condensed it, and then built Virgil around that.
  * It was the anger he had accept for years and forced into the closet, under his bed, in the dresser drawers. It was the anger he had locked away in stone.
  * Virgil sneers at Dee, his hands prop him up at an angle, digging into the earth. “What am I supposed to do about that?”
  * Dee shrugs, “Nothing, anymore.” He reverses his grip on the knife and plunges it downward.
  * At the same time Virgil throws a handful of the gravel up in his face, and rolls to the side. His arm hits the back tire of Roman’s car. Dee’s knife misses as he yelps at the sudden dirt in his eyes.
  * Virgil throws himself towards Dee in a messy tackle. By no means was it professional, but Virgil was far past caring.
  * He smashes Dee’s face into the gravel by a handful of his hair. He pins the other’s arms this side with his knees.
  * Virgil’s vaguely aware of his knuckles smarting still from breaking Patton’s glasses, of his knees bleeding from scrapes on the rocky earth, of the exhaustion that had worn away all of his mental barriers.
  * He presses Dee’s face into the rocks and makes him listen.
  * “What am I supposed to do?” Virgil says. “Before yesterday afternoon I didn’t know this family existed! I didn’t know there was a Thomas Sanders, I didn’t know he was dead, and guess what? I didn’t fucking care either! I still don’t care! I don’t care if you believe me or not! I didn’t ask for any of this! And I’m so, _so_ sick and tired of you sending your friends to kill me.”
  * “You said it yourself, you pompous ass: I’m just a college student!” Virgil breathes heavily, “So what the hell am I supposed to do about that?”
  * Virgil didn’t know when he started crying. Probably sometime between the words “yesterday” and “afternoon”. It makes his eyes burn and his words jagged. Every part of him buzzes.
  * It’s a second later that he realizes Dee’s right hand has another knife, and that he had every opportunity to stab him in the thigh right then and there. It wouldn’t have killed him, but it would have been distracting enough that Dee could have volleyed him off, grabbed his gun, and shoot Virgil in the forehead.
  * Instead Dee’s gloved hand tightens on the blade, and hovers there, in the air.
  * “I never sent anyone to kill you.”
  * “What?” Virgil’s grip tightens on the others hair. His throat scratches, his brain struggles to figure out what the _fuck_ that means.
  * “I never sent anyone to kill you.” He repeats, “That’s not how the family does things.”
  * It’s most likely the exhaustion that had gotten to him. Virgil stares down at the other boy, at the brown eye that is looking right back at him, and the crystals of dust shimmering in the morning sunlight.
  * Dee blinks, “You didn’t kill Thomas.”
  * _WHAT THE EVERLIVING FUCK._
  * Virgil isn’t ashamed to say his brain, short circuits at the statement, at possible meanings behind that statement.
  * _“Why_ would I have killed a guy I didn’t know existed?” Virgil snarls. His shoulders are shaking again. “Why would I kill _anyone_? People don’t go around thinking about killing each other!”
  * “Obviously you’ve never taken a general law class with a bunch of delinquents.”
  * “Why did you think I killed this Thomas guy?”
  * “How could I not? He dies under mysterious circumstances, and somehow my name is crossed of the list and yours is put on.” Dee gritted his teeth, “You’re nobody, a no one. I assumed there was coercion involved. I didn’t want you dead before you confessed to that.”
  * Virgil takes a deep breath, his limbs shaking with the effort.
  * On one hand he could see where, Dee was coming from: regardless of how he felt about Thomas Sanders, finding out that his name wasn’t next in line for the criminal empire would have been a huge blow. In fact, Dee had more of a reason to kill the guy than Virgil did. But since he was claiming he hadn’t had a hand in the murder, and that he wasn’t been attempting to kill Virgil. That left a really big question between the two of them.
  * “If I let you go, are you going to stab me?”
  * “I’ve had every chance to stab you right here.”
  * Virgil holds still for a second and then pushes himself off the other. He leans back, resting his head on the side of Roman’s purple Maserati. Dee crawl back to a sitting position, scrubbing loose piece of gravel off his cheek and hissing at the tiny sharp cuts on his right cheek. Virgil doesn’t feel sorry.
  * Dee picks up his knives and slides them back into their hiding places in his sleeves. Virgil doesn’t trust him not to stab him when his back is turned regardless.
  * “You look terrible.” Dee says, and Virgil thinks he’s trying to make conversation. Virgil wonders if the guy has ever talked to another human being before in his life.
  * “If you aren’t trying to kill me, who is?” Virgil asks.
  * The other boy stares off at the rising sun, his cold eyes calculating in a way that’s just like Logan’s. 
  * “I don’t know,” He says, “But I don’t like any of the options.”
  * “Options?”
  * Dee’s eyes very nearly roll, but he stops last minute. He sighs. “Options. Anyone in the family who wants a chance to be on top. By writing your name, they’ve undermined me, so that if you were to turn up dead by an uncertain source, I am the prime suspect. It would make me vulnerable to attacks based on my age, immaturity, and anger management.”
  * Dee turns to look at Virgil again, “People are like Sharks when they smell blood in the water.”
  * The mental picture isn’t welcome, but it gets the point across.
  * “If I die, you go down, and then it would be a power scramble.” Virgil says, “The entire family would fracture apart and implode trying to figure who is going to lead.”
  * “And if that happens, the Prince’s have the perfect opportunity to sweep in and end us.”
  * “Roman doesn’t want me dead.”
  * “Roman’s impulsive, pigheaded, and not as popular as he’d like to think.” Dee twists a knife in his hand. “He is easy to manipulate and easy to get rid of.”
  * Virgil thinks about the armory in Roman’s mansion, thinks about the guys in the Mardi Gras masks, thinks about Patton and his frying pan and how he saved Virigil’s life.
  * “ _Roman Prince,”_ The foreman had said with his gun pointed at the brunette driver, “ _And Virgil Sanders. It’s time you both are dethroned.”_
  * It hadn’t been Virgil first. Virgil had been an afterthought.
  * So Roman, Virgil, and Dee were all being targeted to some extent.
  * Virgil drops his head to his palms, massaging his temples to the best of his ability.
  * “Why is this happening?” He mutters under his breath. 
  * If Dee hears, he doesn’t respond. He shifts on the gravel and then climbs up to his feet. Virgil watches him, shuffle over to his green motorcycle, picking up his gun and returning it to a holster on his hip, and then his helmet, which he has to dump a couple rocks out of.
  * “Come on,” He says.
  * Virgil blinks at him.
  * “I don’t trust you not to die off by yourself,” Dee says in a very condescending tone, “So until this is sorted out, you’re sticking with me.”
  * Virgil really would rather curl up in the car and sleep for the rest of the week while Dee does whatever he wants.
  * Dee leans down and picks up Virgil’s borrowed knife. He pauses looking at it with a frown.
  * “Virgil,” He says, “Who told you it was me sending people to kill you?”
  * Virgil hesitates, then shrugs, “Logan.”
  * “Logan,” Dee repeats like its a foreign word. “Logan who?”
  * A pit forms in Virgil’s stomach. “Logan Sanders. He said he was a cousin. An accountant. He knew Roman.”
  * Dee held up the knife and looks at Virgil with a gaze that unsettled him to the core. 
  * “There’s no Logan Sanders in our family. Whoever you met, they’re lying.”




	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dee turns in his seat with a cold smile in place as they make their way over to the table and the waitresses make themselves scarce.
> 
> “Officers,” Dee says, “What might I do for you today?”  
> ***  
> aka, Dee and Virgil run into trouble and Logan makes things worse.

  * _“There’s no Logan Sanders in our family. Whoever you met, they’re lying.”_
  * Virgil, however, isn’t lying when he says the next thing he remembers is waking up in a diner.
  * It feels like it came straight out of a bad movie: Virgil blearily raises his head out of his arms, squinting around at the bright light, the clinking of mugs and glasses, and the pattering chatter of other people. His entire body aches, his shoulders in particular, although his legs are a close second. 
  * The diner’s cute. Something that Patton might have picked out: blue booth seats, a bar counter with a rotating cake display case, a kitchen with an open window so customers can watch food being made. The waitresses are wearing blue dresses and green aprons and have smiles that were just a bit too happy. There’s a smell in the air, like coffee, like syrup, like sugar, that reminded Virgil of just how hungry he is.
  * “Ah, he’s awake,” A voice across from him says.
  * It takes Virgil a moment to remember who he is: black biking jacket, black earrings, black gloves. The right side of his face has several misshapen cuts made from gravel. Different colored eyes.
  * Virgil swears and plops his head back into his arms.


  * He had _really_ been hoping he had just imagined up Dee Sanders. But he should have known better: Even Virgil couldn’t have made up someone as completely infuriating as the other boy.
  * Dee is scrolling on a phone (case is black with a yellow double headed snake) with one hand, and moving the last bite of french toast around on a syrup plate with a fork in the other. 
  * “Coffee?” Dee offers, motioning to a coffee thermos.
  * Virgil groans again.
  * “You are very much not a morning person, are you?” 
  * It’s a stupid question from a stupid person. Virgil doesn’t answer it.
  * “Where are we?” He asks instead. “How did we get here?”
  * Dee hums and scrolls a bit more on his phone. “One of my favored diners, on the outskirts of the town you so casually fled oh, I’d say, five hours ago?” He puts the French Toast in his mouth, chews and swallows before he makes up his mind to continue. “On my motorcycle. You were nearly asleep when we walked in. Passed out before dear Emile could take our order. It’s a miracle you didn’t fall off while we were riding and die a gruesome death.”
  * “I fucking hate you,” Virgil says. 
  * Dee laughs conspiratorially. “Such a riot, you are, my dear Virge.”
  * “Don’t call me that.”
  * “What, Virge? Does it bother you, Virge? What about Virgie?”
  * “Please die.”
  * “Well, since you asked so nicely.” Dee says. He places the fork back on his plate and waves for the closest employees attention. “Please get him something to eat. I can’t stand the drowned raccoon look he’s wearing.”
  * Virgil finds himself too tired to care about the insult. The waiter– a man with half lens glasses and a smile– nods respectively to Dee and heads off without asking anymore questions.
  * There’s a mug by Virgil’s arm. He checks it and seeing as it was empty he reaches for the coffee thermos that had been left on their table. It’s lukewarm and probably poisoned (based on his company at least).
  * Virgil downs two cups of it anyway.
  * “Why are we here?” He asks after another moment when it becomes obvious that Dee lost interest in the real world.
  * The other heir blinks a few times, “I was hungry. You were tired. This was a safe place. Do you want another reason?”
  * Virgil looks around at all the people in the restaurant. It doesn’t feel safe. It feels like too many normal people, too many wide windows, too many movements. It would be very simple for someone to come in the front doors with an assault rifle, or for a sniper to be sitting in the parking lot lying in wait, or for the chef to sprinkle in some rat poison with the eggs, or–
  * “Stop,” Dee says, without taking his eyes from his phone, “Before you overthink all of us to death.”
  * “I’m not overthinking,” Virgil says, just to be petty and a lair.
  * Dee taps the screen of his phone. He frowns. 
  * “What are you doing?” Not that Virgil really, truly cares but
  * it’s something to talk about. anything is better than the thoughts in his head, the tickle on his back, the feeling of being watched, the _paranoia_. 
  * “I am trying to figure out who your mysterious Logan Sanders is,” Dee says. “A friend of Roman’s does not mean a friend of mine.”
  * Which also makes sense. Virgil’s stomach does a frustrated flip. The coffee hasn’t done much yet, but his brain is slowly starting to work on the fractured puzzle that was his knew life. He has half a mind to go find a phone and call his mother and scream at her for a few minutes.
  * But he doesn’t want to hear her inevitable _“I told you so”_
  * And he’s so very tired of being the only person who doesn’t know what’s going on.
  * He stares at Dee. It’s not completely obvious that they were cousins, at least that’s what Virgil thinks. Dee is more rugged, more jaded. His nose looks like its been broken at one point. The scattered cuts on his cheek don’t help very much. 
  * But maybe they have the same colored hair, possibly similar cowlicks in the back. Virgil can feel him bouncing his leg under the table the same why Virgil does when he’s trying to remember a comment from a lecture hours later.
  * The deviousness he had before was all but gone now, and in its place was a thoughtful, calculating– if not a bit of an asshole– person. A facade? Or was this the real Dee? Virgil isn’t sure he wants to know. 
  * ~~(Because knowing might suggests that he cares. And if he cares he might be swept deeper into this mess)~~
  * The waiter comes back a minute later with a two plates: one of two sunny side up eggs, hash browns, and bacon, and the other with two pancakes and a slab of butter. He puts it down in front of Virgil.
  * “Anything else I can get you, sir?” He asks, but he’s staring at Dee when he talks. Virgil picks at a roll of silverware and frees a fork from the clutches.
  * “Nothing, Emile,” Dee says without looking up. “You may go.”
  * The man nods one more time, smiling just as brightly despite the unfriendly statement. He waves at Virgil, “Gotta Blast!”
  * Then he’s gone and Virgil and Dee are left alone again. Virgil uses his fork to move the slab of butter off his pancakes entirely, and then drowns them in syrup.
  * “Logan….” Dee hums. “Are any of these familiar?”
  * He flips his phone around to show four pictures of grainy quality. They look like security footage, or candid shots from across the street. Two of the men in the pictures are too old, another too short, and the fourth is too blurry for Virgil to be sure but from his limited time with the man, Virgil can’t think of him wearing something so casual.
  * He shakes his head and cuts the pancake in triangles.
  * “Oh good,” Dee says, “He’s not a professional assassin hired to kill any of us–What are you doing?”
  * Virgil pauses with his slice of pancake halfway to his mouth. “Eating?”
  * “Why did you cut them like that?”
  * “Because I wanted too?”
  * “That’s not how you cut a pancake.”
  * “Are you seriously going to argue this with me?” Virgil says, almost in disbelief, “It’s a pancake.”
  * “You’re doing it wrong.” Dee says stubbornly.
  * “You attempted to kill me with a knife like five minutes ago. Grow up.”
  * “It was more like five hours ago.” Dee corrects. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You’re an adult. I’m an adult. Our family is the mafia. You can cut your pancakes however you like.”
  * Virgil shakes his head, “ _Thank you_.” He stuffs the slice in his mouth.
  * ….
  * “But you’re still wrong.”
  * Virgil throws the fork on the plate. Dee laughs and continues scrolling through his phone.
  * “Child,” Dee says, with a look that suggests his immensely proud of himself.
  * They don’t talk again. Virgil eats all of the food Emile brought him, and drinks another cup of coffee. Emile slips by and replaces the thermos with a smile but doesn’t stick around for long. Dee has a cup and pours two creamers and three Splenda in it.
  * “Weak,” Virgil says under his breath.
  * “Not all of us are animals, Virgil.” Dee says as he stirs it but its clear he’s far from unbothered.
  * Virgil turns his attention to the rest of the diners. According to the wall clock by the front of the diner, it’s nearing ten o’clock, so senior citizens have been trickling in for the breakfast specials. There are still a few families with little kids who stand and bounce on the booth seats or color with crayons provided by Emile. In the back corner there are some teenagers blowing straw wrappers at each other like they’re too cool to go to school.
  * Normal people. Normal lives. 
  * Virgil’s desperate wish to be one of them numbs his chest. He stops thinking about it, but his eyes linger on a couple at the counter, where one is leaning their head on the other. 
  * And maybe his thoughts turn to Patton instead. 
  * Sleep and food and coffee haven’t really helped him a lot, and Virgil is no where near totally forgiving his best friend, but it feels cold and empty without Patton right beside him making jokes and puns. Virgil rubs the inside of his arms as he remembers twelve hours ago him and Patton skipping down the sidewalk with their arms linked.
  * He can admit he misses his friend a little right? It’s only natural?
  * He’s still angry. 
  * Still hurt.
  * And it will take a lot more than an apology for Patton to make it up to him.
  * Although Virgil can’t even begin to think what he would want from Patton in order to forgive him.
  * Realistically Patton would probably give him anything–even one of his organs– if Virgil demanded it. 
  * ~~(Virgil has no clue what he would do with his best friend’s organ though, so he scraps that idea.)~~
  * He does miss the puns though. And the jokes. And steady flow of conversation between the two of them that came easily despite them having known each other for a decade and some change. 
  * He had forgotten what it was like to be uninteresting to someone, how to run out of things to talk about.
  * Luckily Dee helped him remember that (Virgil thinks sarcastically enough that he rolls his eyes).
  * Roman hadn’t been to bad either, Virgil concedes as he breaks the yolk on one of his eggs and dips his hash browns in it. Dee squints at the action but returns to his phone quickly.
  * Roman hadn’t tried to kill him. 
  * (Part of Virgil was crying on the inside, because _that was really where the bar was? Roman hadn’t tried to kill him?_ ) 
  * But Roman had also invited him to his house, gifted him a car (that Virgil had left on a distant mountain somewhere), and let Virgil arm himself. Even knowing that they were rivals.
  * The only issue was the whole Logan business. The strict teacher-esque person who had shown up to save Virgil out of no where and had an obvious past with Roman. 
  * A flirty, weird obvious past with Roman. He took a bullet for the other heir. That had to mean something right? 
  * He hadn’t killed Virgil, even if he had been a bit of a jerk to Patton, been terse and unfriendly to all of them, and had tried to yell Virgil into accepting his fate as an heir.
  * He wasn’t a bad person right? Again Virgil wonders if maybe his bar had been knocked a little _too_ low yesterday night.
  * After all, Virgil only believes Dee was who he said he was _because_ he had tried to kill Virgil with a knife to his gut. Following that, Dee had kidnapped him and brought him to a cute diner and served him pancakes like a chaotic entity.
  * Dee seemed reasonably sure that Logan wasn’t an assassin. And Virgil who didn’t know much about that had to agree. Logan had a million chances to kill him and didn’t take any of them. 
  * But he still had training. That was obvious. Training enough to know how to shoot in a moving car and out of one, to know how to fight, to know how to stomach a gunshot to his upper arm without passing out.
  * What type of person knew that? A soldier? What was a soldier doing in the middle of this mafia war?
  * Virgil glances around the dining area. A lot of people had appeared to have asked for checks. The waitresses are running around no longer with food as much as handling drinks and paper and money. None of them look over at him and Dee.
  * Virgil’s fingers tighten around his mug.
  * “How safe is this diner?” He asks.
  * Dee scrolls through his phone. “Safe,” He says dismissively.
  * Virgil recognizes the feel in his chest, the one that races up and down his spine
  * the one that he had had yesterday night, right before Patton had suggested they go to the movies, right before his mother had texted him to go back inside, right before Logan had appeared on the sidewalk and requested that Virgil come with him, and right before Virgil turned around and found a gun held to his head.
  * The _Everything is going to go wrong_ feeling.
  * “Please quit your freaking out, Virgil,” Dee says, “It’s unbecoming and embarrassing. I’m ashamed to be sitting next to you.”
  * “Dee,” Virgil hisses through his front teeth, “How. Safe.”
  * He blinks, then boredly drapes his head in his free hand.“Well, I pay very nicely to make sure the Orphanage up the road remains up-to-date and the children are well taken care of, and Emile respectfully gives me and my associates anything I request.”
  * Virgil can feel the condescending tone of his words like a sack of bricks on his achy shoulders.
  * “Relax, my dear,” Dee says, “There is nothing to worry about here.”
  * Virgil sets down his mug. “Have you ever had a normal dining experience?”
  * Dee’s eyes flick up from the phone, and then stay situated on Virgil. He tries not to show up that gaze makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
  * “Its not normal for there to have only been two customers come in during a ten o’clock rush.” Virgil says. “It’s not normal for most of the customers to have asked for checks all at the same time.”
  * Virgil leans forward and taps the table on the opposite side of Dee, next to the neat stack of plates and his empty coffee mug. He watches the multi colored eyes followed the motion. 
  * “It’s not normal for your waiter to not take away your dishes,” Virgil says in the lowest, calmest tone he can manage
  * its still not very calm.
  * “How safe,” Virgil asks, “is this diner?”
  * Dee’s eyes flick out to check on the facts. There’s only a couple people left in the diner now. The waitresses seem to be watching them, refusing to look at Virgil and Dee’s table. Emile isn’t among them. Actually Virgil doesn’t think he’s seen Emile since the man replenished the coffee.
  * Dee’s phone goes dark. He doesn’t turn it back on.
  * “Do you still have that knife on you?” He asks.
  * “I am not killing anyone,” Virgil hisses back.
  * “Just a question,” Dee says even though everyone and their grandmothers can see it’s not. He glances to the side, “Shall we go see who’s been waiting for us?”
  * Virgil’s ready to say no, because _really he doesn’t._
  * Because past experience says it’s someone who wants to kill them
  * Because Virgil wants to go back to sleep and wake up in his room with his alarm clock blaring and Patton’s giggling about him oversleeping again.
  * he doesn’t have to.
  * because the people who had been waiting and weening out the other diners, decide it’s time for them to make their entrances right as the last of the other customers skirt through the doors. 
  * Dee turns in his seat with a cold smile in place as they make their way over to the table and the waitresses make themselves scarce.
  * “Officers,” Dee says, “What might I do for you today?”
  * Virgil’s pretty sure he stops breathing right then and there.
  * The men in front of him are gruff and hardened people, and Virgil has grown up hearing _“don’t make a scene, don’t draw their attention, Virgil are you listening?!”_ with his hair being tugged and sometimes pulled out. Virgil has been afraid of the police since long before he was consciously part of a mafia.
  * “Dee Sanders,” The one on the left says. (There’s nothing distinguishing about him, Virgil thinks. He looks like a normal person in a police uniform and a hand on a taser gun and a dirty look in his eyes.)
  * “The one and only,” Dee says too nicely to be real. It reminds Virgil of the stillness of a snake before it lunges forward and snaps its jaws around its prey.
  * “I’m going to need you to come with me.”
  * “Are you arresting me?” 
  * Virgil’s fingers tighten on the edge of the table. His mind screams about moving, about fleeing, about escaping. But he’s certain a single twitch of his fingers with have the officer drawing his weapon.
  * “Please don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.” The man on the right says, (accent indistinct, but not something Virgil’s heard before).
  * “I’m afraid I don’t understand Officers. Have I broken a law just eating breakfast at my favorite diner?”
  * Virgil thinks of the gun holster on Dee’s bike and prays the man has a permit to carry. 
  * The officers’ badges gleams– one on the belt, the other above the left chest pocket.
  * “Actually,” The one on the left says, with a deliberate movement to his pocket where a thin envelope was waiting to be delivered. “I have a warrant for your arrest regarding the suspicious activity with a drive-by shooting several weeks ago.” 
  * Virgil’s heart thunders in his chest. He can’t move, can’t breathe. This was it. They were going to arrest Dee. Would they arrest Virgil, too, for eating with him? Could they?
  * (They police would protect them though, wouldn’t they? That was their job! At least in a holding cell, no mafia members could reach him right? Right?)
  * Dee doesn’t take the envelope, “That’s not necessary.”
  * “Are you resisting arrest, Mr. Sanders?”
  * the officer sounds,,,, hopeful??
  * “Of course not,” Dee says all too kindly, “For me to be resisting arrest, you would have to be a real police officer.”
  * The officer on the left draws his weapon, and it’s not a taser gun that Virgil had thought it was. Dee’s faster, though, and he kicks a leg out and catches the man in the shin.
  * The other officer yells, but Virgil shoves his elbow into the pile of dishes and sent them crashing into his gut.
  * One of Dee’s blades careens through the air with a shining red color before Virgil can even blink. The officer on the left hits the floor clutching at his throat.
  * Dee spins and elbows the other officer in the back of the neck. In his daze he doesn’t have time to stop Dee from slamming his head into the edge of the table. He hits the floor.
  * Virgil can’t tell if the air got thinner or if he’s having another anxiety attack. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
  * “Don’t flash a fake badge at me,” Dee says spitefully to the downed men.
  * Then: “Come on, Virgil. Unless you want to die.”
  * A siren wails right outside the windows, probably from the parking lot.
  * “Not all of them are going to be dirty.” Dee says, like an after thought. He cleans the blade on his pants.
  * Virgil stumbles out of the booth, tripping over the unconsciously man’s body, and his hand lands in a puddle of something warm and wet and red. He wants to scream.
  * Dee drags him up before he can.
  * “Time to make our exit,” The other says, “Out the back.”
  * They run for it.
  * Virgil slides on the tile floor nearly tripping. They break through the kitchen swing doors at the same time more officers rush through the front doors.
  * Virgil doesn’t know the layout of the place. But Dee weaves around the empty counter. 
  * Virgil doesn’t think, at least not on a level that matters. As he runs by he gives a backhanded shove to a pot of boiling water on the stove and it rolls off and all over the floor with a clang. Water floods the tile all the way back to the doors.
  * The Officer who follows them first hydroplanes straight into a rack of metal trays and pots.
  * Dee’s laughing. At what, Virgil isn’t sure. He doesn’t have the breath to ask.
  * And Dee doesn’t stay laughing long enough.
  * He shoulders through the back door into the fresh air with a triumphant grin. He doesn’t see what Virgil sees– doesn’t see the shadow strike from the right, the heavy handle, the flash of metal in the mid morning sun.
  * Virgil doesn’t have the breath to warn him as the gun handle slams into the back of his head.
  * He also doesn’t have the strength to stop his own momentum, he barrels straight into the attacker and they both roll over Dee’s body and into the sunshine.
  * Virgil has exactly one second to orientate himself. Every cell in his body _screams._ He’s _touching someone._ That Someone was _touching him._
  * It feels like lasers to every single atom in his body, it feels like a bomb in his chest, in his head, everything burns so badly it hurts and Virgil’s mind is thrown two years in the past back before Patton’s casual touches, back before he could think of anyone coming close to him.
  * A second later That Someone he was on top of, That Someone with no-nonsense dark eyes behind black framed glasses, That Someone with flecks of blood on their tie, That Someone jabs something into Virgil’s stomach.
  * A click.
  * And then Virgil can feel all of his muscles, and then all of them spasm.
  * And then Virgil has absolutely no control over his body anymore. 
  * His shoulders seize, his back arches, and he goes limp until he can’t feel anything other than the electricity surging though his body. 
  * It feels like an hour, a day, a year.
  * It’s only three seconds and Virgil knows because the electricity recedes and the attacker shoves his limp body off and then the Police shove open the door.
  * “Please, Desist,” His familiar voice says and Virgil can’t physically believe how stupid all of them had been.
  * “I am Logan Ackroyd, Undercover FBI.” Logan says, one hand– his non shot hand– casually fixing his tie, “And I’ll be taking these two into custody.”




	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re telling me you don’t have any qualms about killing a college brat? Any at all, Mr. Undercover FBI?”
> 
> “I’m not paid to have morals, Remus.”  
> ***  
> aka, Remus abhors seatbelts, Virgil tries to figure out how not to die (again)

  * Virgil thinks of all the times he’s previously been arrested.
  * There are none.
  * Instead he’s stuck with all his limbs unresponsive like a computer that’s been disconnected, his head worrying with a faint buzzing from where he’d head hit the ground after Logan shoved him away _(hand on Virgil’s bare collarbone, cold and heavy slipped past his shirt collar and his jacket)_ , and his mouth overwhelmingly tasting like burnt popcorn.
  * Virgil’s knowledge of police procedures come completely from the stolen few minutes of Criminal Minds he caught on TV occasionally as a child 
  * ( ~~before his mother caught him, before she yelled and tore at his hair and told him never to let the police get near him)~~
  * And really, what more had he needed to know? 
  * Don’t do illegal things! That was easy enough!
  * Virgil thinks, as his rights are read to him, and his hands are cuffed behind his back, and he’s loaded into the back of a police car in front of a crowd of bypassers coming to the diner for a midday brunch, he failed, **majorly**.


  * He doesn’t even know what crime he was being arrested for.
  * Was it the suspicious activity of people shooting at him in the movie theater? Was it the reckless speeding through town that he had been a passenger in? Was it the murder of two assumed police officers in the diner five minutes ago?
  * All three?
  * None?
  * “Wow, the real deal!” A local police officer says from somewhere Virgil can’t see
  * (which is pretty much everywhere, considering the only thing he can see is a black ant scuttling through the grass inches from his nose and getting closer)
  * “Hey, Wally, check these guys out! They’re real FBI!” The officer says again.
  * “Wouldja look at that! A real FBI badge!”
  * Virgil wonders if they knew the difference between a real one and a fake one. He has his doubts concerning the two officers who tried to apprehend them inside the dinner.
  * “Yes,” Logan’s voice says coolly, coldly, icily, “I am a real FBI agent with real paperwork to complete and this mess to take care of.” 
  * Virgil is really not a fan of how he says “mess”. 
  * Like Virgil is month old take out that started to reproduce, like the sticky mess of spilled energy drinks that Virgil carelessly left across his desk which ended up gluing the entire back cover of his Western Civ textbook to the wooden surface, like the aftermath of an execution and the blood had spilled into the grout.
  * “Remus,” Logan’s voice calls out, “Time to go.”
  * Then someone picks up Virgil by his shoulder and another by his feet and all Virgil can think is _people touching him, hands on his body, and he cant move._
  * He wants to scream, but the effects of the taser are long lasting (apparently) and he can’t even get his tongue to unstick from the top of his mouth, much less open his jaw at all. 
  * The idea of forcing air out of his already uncomfortably compressed lungs?
  * forget it.
  * He’s vaguely aware that on other side of him, Dee was carefully loaded in, completely useless, completely unconscious.
  * Virgil gets the feeling he’s just a passenger in his own body. Part of him wants to feel humiliated by the way the he’d been manhandled into a police car in front of a dozen families and two news crews.
  * Part of him wants to revoke Dee’s kneecap privileges for being _so fucking dense_ that he hadn’t even noticed anything was weird about the dinning experience.
  * Part of him wants to lunge forward and wrap his arms around Logan’s throat, and strangle him between the links of his handcuffs and the headrest. ~~(not that Virgil would act on that one; there’s clearly a metal mesh between the backseat and where Logan has slipped into the driver’s seat to prevent that exact scenario from occurring)~~
  * Because really, he was FBI?! He was undercover?! He had been playing each of them in oh so many ways– How long had he been fooling Roman? What had he done to Roman and Patton when Virgil had left? What was his actual goal here?
  * And did it involve Virgil being alive at the end of it?
  * (Virgil wants to think so. Logan wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to keep him alive just to kill him–)
  * Logan’s partner slaps a hand on the window, inches from where Virgil’s head had fallen, and grins at him as he opens his own door and slips into the seat in front of Virgil.
  * The look Virgil gets is brief.
  * And also terrifying.
  * Virgil _knows_ that face.
  * Knows that face as well as he can, the partial of it seared into his brain as the moment Virgil’s life ended and this twisted nightmare began.
  * Its the face of the gunman that had tried to shoot him in the face at the movies, the gunman who Logan had tackled to first save his life, the gunman who Virgil hadn’t spared a second thought about because since his appearance, it had been _run_ and _duck_ and _please don’t let me die._
  * “Oh! He’s pretty cute back there!” The partner says, “I love when they’re all tied up like cute little piggies!”
  * Logan’s head shakes in a way that suggests he’s rolling his eyes.
  * The car hums to life, and Logan breezes by the crowd the second the police line widens enough for them to escape. Once they leave the public eye, Logan’s partner’s seatbelt comes off and his feet go up on the dashboard with something dancing between his fingers causally.
  * “FBI!” The partner laughs, “I can’t believe they really bought those fake badges of yours!”
  * “Remus, seatbelt.” Logan says without looking away from the road. “And they are real.”
  * Remus laughs. He makes no move to reattach the belt.
  * Virgil’s eyes flick to the side mirror in front of them, just in time to catch sight of the butterfly knife the man is expertly twisting around his index and middle finger. Remus catches his gaze in the mirror and blows him a kiss with a wink.
  * Virgil wishes he was in control of his body, enough to shudder, enough to snarl, enough to throw himself from the car and the oncoming traffic hits him just right–
  * “What a kid,” Remus sighs, perhaps dreamily, “Do you think I can keep his head for my mantle?”
  * “You don’t have a mantle.” Logan says, “You don’t have a house.”
  * “Yeah,” Remus agrees. “But also he’s a kid.”
  * Logan uses turn signals, Virgil notices, faintly. He feels very faint.
  * Like a balloon that’s floating away. And one day he’ll reach the upper atmospheres where the decreasing air pressure will cause his insides to expand until he explodes into a 
  * “ _mess”_
  * that Logan will have to clean up.
  * The air in the car is tense. Virgil can’t breathe
  * It might also have to do with the fact he can’t move and there’s a murderer in front of him talking about killing him and– and–
  * “Interesting,” Logan says, using one of his turn signals to switch lanes, “I wasn’t aware you got metaphoric cold feet over assassinations.”
  * The knife flips in the air. Virgil squeezes his eyes closed, forcing his chest to _move._
  * “You’re telling me you don’t have any qualms about killing a college brat? Any at all, Mr. Undercover FBI?”
  * “I’m not paid to have morals, Remus.”
  * Logan sounds cold, colder than ice. The vibrations of his tone wash over Virgil like a ocean, and suddenly he’s drowning.
  * He’s drowning on dry land and Remus is laughing.
  * “Surely if you want to– how they say, “flake out”, you’re welcome to open your door and take a walk.” 
  * Virgil’s pretty sure Logan speeds up as he talks; the white line on the edge of the road blurs, Virgil’s head’s rumbles against the window until he’s sure he’ll never be able to see straight again.
  * “Aw Specs!” Remus laughs. Logan’s head twitches at the nickname, the same nickname that Roman had called him oh-so-long ago. “No way I’m gonna let you handle all the _juicy_ stuff yourself! You already got all the credit for Roman Prince’s!”
  * All the energy in the car turns to white noise.
  * Virgil’s chest,
  * halts,
  * in the middle of a breath.
  * and he can’t think
  * because that’s not right
  * can’t be right.
  * Roman– Roman trusted Logan.
  * Logan had taken a bullet for him.
  * why did–
  * how did–
  * Logan fixes his rear view mirror with his non shot hand. Perfectly fluid.
  * Virgil can see it in his mind’s eye suddenly: the memory of Logan throwing himself into Roman and taking that bullet and bleeding and getting close to Roman, being right next to Roman, demanding that Roman equip him with another gun despite his dominant hand being out of commission. 
  * He can see it suddenly: the second that Virgil had stormed out, Logan had put two in Roman’s distracted gut. While Virgil had been racing the in the purple car, Roman had been bleeding out on his own kitchen floor, and Patton must have joined him. While Virgil was arguing with Dee, Logan was getting paid for the murder of two people who trusted him.
  * Logan was ambidextrous.
  * Virgil doesn’t know where the strength comes from.
  * All he knows is he threw himself forward battering against the metal mesh with an angry ferocity that made Logan’s injured hand lose hold of the steering wheel. The whole car shakes as Logan swaps hands and curses.
  * _“Why?”_
  * It’s barely a breathe between his tense jaw and his thick tongue and numb lips. The word itself feels like a dagger in his own chest just to say.
  * “Interesting,” Logan says again, this time with his eyes in the rear view, and they stare directly at Virgil. A scientist’s gaze. “The box jellyfish poison should have shut down most bodily functions but it appears that it is wearing off faster than I anticipated.”
  * _~~(Hand on Virgil’s bare collarbone, cold and heavy, slipped past his shirt collar, and leaving the skin numbed. The poison sinking into Virgil’s skin while the taser had him immobile)~~_
  * “It’s a good question!” Remus!! Says!! excitedly!! He turns in his seat, flipping the knife close with one hand and wiggling his fingers through the mesh with the other, like a taunt. 
  * “Pardon?”
  * “Why did the straight and narrow, hard working FBI agent Logan Ackroyd, decided to throw it all away so suddenly?” Remus sings. Virgil can see something left in his mustache, a something red like jam.
  * Logan switches lanes again.
  * “If you must know,” He says his fingers curling on the top of the steering wheel. “The pay is more suitable to my tastes.” 
  * Which is a fancy way of saying Logan had managed to put a price tag on people.
  * That Logan looked at Roman and actively thought, _“I could kill this annoying man for X amount of dollars in cash”_
  * That Logan looked at Virgil and saw dollar signs rather than the terrified kid he was.
  * “Oh, you nerdy little dork!” Remus hums, “You’re speaking my language now!”
  * “Of course I am. English is both our first–”
  * “Dork means whale penis. Basically, I called you a whale penis!”
  * Virgil wonders if Logan was being paid enough for this; by the way the car speeds up, he doubts it.
  * Virgil clings to the anger in his chest. He squeezes his eyes closed, thinking of the past twenty four hours, of Roman in his house, of Roman talking about his cars, of Roman speeding down the street and laughing, with those stupid sunglasses in his glossy mused hair. He thinks of the feel the gravel under his knees, of the sound of his best friends voice, of Patton’s elbow on his hooked and swinging and even if it was all a lie and Virgil was just an assignment Patton had completed–
  * Virgil thinks of the boy he was closest too, and thinks of how the feel of his broken glasses under Virgil’s knuckles and the look of shock on his freckled face. 
  * And of the hollowed hours since where Virgil swore to himself he didn’t want Patton by his side.
  * ~~Where Virgil lied because he wants Patton here very badly even if hes mad even if they’re fighting even if he can’t ever forgive Patton.~~
  * Where Virgil was busy being angry and upset and his best friend was being killed by the cold hearted, side switching, asshole in the seat in front of him without a seconds hesitation.
  * Virgil clings to that, clings to the anger that explodes in his chest, and the thudding of his heart that breaks his own ear drums. He reaches out of his limbs–
  * Because he was not going to just sit here and let that _bastard_ take kill him for money, kill his friends for paper and coins and get away with it.
  * For once, Virgil breathes a thanks to his mother for telling him all the ways to kill a person, a bedtime story that Virgil felt for the first time he was willing to actually implement. 
  * And if he can get angry enough, his limbs will move, because that’s what always happens in those movies.
  * He thinks his heavy numb fingers manage to twitch when Remus speaks again.
  * “I don’t know if I’m alright with the split we agreed on.”
  * Logan’s head tilts ever-so-much. The car pulls on to a single lane road. The trees come next, covering them in the flickers of shadow and sun.
  * “Elaborate.”
  * “I want seventy percent.”
  * Logan scoffs.
  * “It just seems that I deserve more than you!” Remus says, “In fact, I think I’ll take it all.”
  * Virgil blinks and the butterfly knife is at Logan’s throat.
  * “Let’s talk math, kid genius.”
  * the car swerves as Logan’s eyes leave the road for a second to look at the death at his throat. Virgil feels as his foot comes off the pedal, slowing down in the middle of a forest that looks like private property.
  * “Keep driving.” Remus hisses delightedly.
  * Logan presses down the gas pedal and the trees begin to blur by. Virgil has a hard time watching.
  * It has nothing to do with the stirring that suddenly comes to his attention next to him.
  * “Isn’t this fun?” Remus asks, “You’re going to drive to the clearing and park the car. I’m going to kill you, and the little emo in the backseat–”
  * “You said we were going to talk.” Logan says indifferently, “I’m afraid I have some bad news in regards to that course of action.” 
  * “Remus?” A voice speaks up groggily. 
  * “Oh hey, Dee!” 
  * “Wha–” Virgil thinks its a weird to see the other heir so disorientated, and he’s only known the other heir for a maximum of three hours.”What are you doing–?”
  * “Me and Logan were having a chat about how we’re going to divide the reward for the death of Virgil Sanders!”
  * “Yes, and unfortunately, Roman Prince informs me I’m a terrible conversationalist.” Logan says, and then slams on the breaks of the car and sends seat-beltless Remus straight through the front windshield.




	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So sorry,” Dee’s voice whispers in his ear.
> 
> Virgil thinks he’s full of shit.  
> ***  
> aka a standoff with Virgil's life on the line.

  * Virgil hits the metal mash between the backseat and the front seats and can’t raise a limb to defend himself.
  * Dee isn’t much better
  * his cheek had been cut up from their tussle that morning and Virgil can guess from the hissing that escapes his mouth that sudden wires digging into those cuts were not helping.
  * Serves him right.


  * For being a dumbass.
  * And for choosing _only now_ to wake up.
  * Logan’s got a seat belt, so it saves him from following Remus out the windshield in a pretty little rainstorm of glass fragments _like he deserves._
  * But he’s moving before Virgil’s body has even fallen back against the seat again. Seat belt comes off, his door flies open, and he’s half out of the car with a _fucking gun_ pointed at the
  * lump
  * that was Remus.
  * Virgil can’t breathe
  * he can’t he cant he _cant_
  * Its a lump on the ground, at the the foot of a tree, and the grass sparkles with sunlight that catches on the fragments of the glass around said lump.
  * Virgil went through Drivers Ed in high school. His teacher had enjoyed a scared tactic approach of showing them various accidents that would discourage reckless driving, lest they end up like the horrifying pictures on the screen. It had taken him months to just get the courage to learn to turn the ignition while sitting in the drivers seat.
  * Virgil knows that flying out the window like that is not something people get up from.
  * And yet
  * Logan switches off the safety of his gun.
  * And Remus–
  * the lump shifts, and there’s a horrible grating laughter and Remus’s face flips up to stare directly at them. Blood is pouring from the right side of his face, his hair is slick back and it looks a lot like he just cut off his own ear.
  * His eyes are wide, wider than Virgil this is possible and his irises are so small compared to them white around them. He looks crazy.
  * The laugh doesn’t help. nor the blood in his teeth.
  * “I didn’t–” Blood dribbles from his lips, and down his chin, “–didn’t know you had a sense of humor, poindexter!”  
“Stay down, Remus.” Logan says. It’s not a suggestion.
  * Remus cackles. “I only take orders from two people, Ackroyd.” He pulls a twisted looking arm from somewhere and uses it to slowly leverage his torso up like he doesn’t feel the pain at all.“One of them is the big G up there.”
  * Logan’s gun doesn’t shake.
  * “And you aren’t the other.”
  * The movement is so fast, too fast.
  * One moment Remus is on the ground, creeping his way up and the next he’s standing from a crouch and Logan is on the ground swearing with his uninjured hand cupped to his chest and his gun lost somewhere behind him. 
  * Remus laughs again, tilting his head to the side at an angle that should have broken his neck. There blood all the way down his neck and it bleeds into the collar of his fake uniform. In his hand there’s something small and sharp and metallic.
  * “Oh boohoo!” Remus yips, “Did the big bad police officer not like my parlor trick? I can show you more! I have dozens!” He spreads his fingers showing off five more of those tiny metallic things. Virgil thinks they might be ninja stars, or shurikens, or something equally ludicrous. 
  * Remus flings this hands forward with a cold blooded smirk. Logan dives away from car swearing all the way. When he comes back up his there’s a thin trail of blood on his cheek that’s beginning to swell, and three more of those blades sticking from the plastic of the car door.
  * Virgil’s chest seizes seeing it, seeing the way Logan’s shoulders curl around himself defensively, seeing how utterly defenseless he was against Remus.
  * Virgil doesn’t like Logan.
  * Virgil’s not supposed to like Logan.
  * But for just this second Remus looks so much worse. 
  * He desperately wriggles the limbs he can _almost_ feel, his thumbs, his fingers, his toes.
  * because he needs to move now, if he’s going to get out of here alive. He needs to leave before they finish fighting each other.
  * A shuriken slices right through the metal mesh and implants in the seat cushion a millimeter from Virgil’s face.
  * “I can do two at once!” Remus says, “I’m all sorts of flexible!”
  * He takes a step forward, a step towards them– wobbling slightly and then laughing about his inability to balance himself perfectly. He looks like death, like a grim reaper come directly from a literal hell to reap their souls, like the last page of a story with an unhappy ending and an unsatisfying moral and an everlasting regret of buying the book in the first place.
  * Virgil wants to cry.
  * He wants to wake up.
  * He wants to live.
  * “Remus!” Dee rasps from beside Virgil. The Assassin’s eyes flick towards him.
  * Remus’s mouth opens to say something, but a shadow rises behind him, dark and foreboding and swift.
  * Virgil’s not sure how the man sensed it, how the man seemed to know it was there, but Remus whips around just as the sword cleaves the air above his head. 
  * Metal against metal clashes throughout the forest they’re in, shattering the silence like a mirror.
  * “Oh,” Remus grunts happily, “I knew you had died far too easily!” 
  * Virgil wants to cry. 
  * “I believe the nerd told you to stay down.” Roman Prince, very much alive, says.
  * Virgil does cry.
  * The Heir the Prince Family holds his sword like he’s never known how to hold any other weapon. Remus just barely deflects it against with his inch long metal blades. 
  * They’re too far away. Too close. Too quick.
  * Roman’s foot comes up and Remus’s ribcage doesn’t stand a chance.
  * Remus hits the ground, spitting out a mouth full more of blood. His palms full of shurikens scatter in the grass.
  * Roman’s foot comes down on his chest, and his sword goes to the soft of his throat blurring the line between threat and attack.
  * “Stay.” Roman says coldly, “Down.”
  * And despite all that, the only thing Virgil can think is _he’s alive._
  * _Roman’s alive, so Logan didn’t kill him._
  * _Roman’s alive, so Pat must be too._
  * Virgil thinks that maybe there might be a chance he lives to see tomorrow, or the next hour, or the next minute.
  * And he’s so caught in the euphoria of hope–that stupid _, stupid_ euphoria– that he–
  * that he doesn’t even notice the movement beside him.
  * Not that he could have done anything about it.
  * But that doesn’t change the sudden terror of something flying over his head and then wrapping around his throat until he literally can’t breathe.
  * “So sorry,” Dee’s voice whispers in his ear.
  * Virgil thinks he’s full of shit.
  * As it stands his blood is still pumping full of whatever jellyfish toxin Logan put on him, and Dee has his wrists on either side of Virgil’s neck and is using the links between them to crush his windpipe.
  * Virgil doesn’t think Dee’s been sorry for anything in his life before.
  * The side door opens a second later, as Virgil is choking for breath, and Virgil really wishes he could feel anything other than terror when he sees Patton’s face right there two feet away.
  * “Hello,” Dee says, when Patton freezes at the sight of them. “Be a dear and tell Prince to get off my Assassin.”
  * Patton looks almost the same as before Virgil left him: still that rounded face, those freckles, those eyes. His nose is scratched though, and his glasses are held together with tape, and his expression is too serious for the bubbly person Virgil used to know.
  * Or the person that Virgil thought he used to know.
  * Maybe this is the real Patton.
  * What does Virgil know?
  * “I think,” Patton says, “You should tell him that yourself.”
  * Dee seems to consider the suggestion. 
  * Virgil’s adam’s apple presses against the metal of the handcuffs. He can feel the coldness of it and its radically different from the heat of Dee’s skin, the heat of his ghostly touch brushing against Virgil’s own.
  * It’s too close.
  * And Virgil can’t move, or remove it. 
  * And there’s tears on his cheeks that don’t make the situation better, that don’t make it easier to breathe, that don’t make him any calmer.
  * “Virgil,” Patton says softly.
  * He leans forward; Dee jerks them both back.
  * “Another move, and Virgil will have to change his names to Nearly Headless Nick.” Dee says far less elegantly than normal, “Kapeesh?”
  * Patton hesitates, his eyes never leaving Virgil. Virgil thinks he might be trying to convey some sort of message via alien telepathy. Or best friend telepathy. Either way the message isn’t getting through because Virgil’s breathing is only speeding up and its getting hard to focus on anything beyond the darkness creeping on the edge of his vision.
  * “Prince!” Dee shouts towards the open windshield without looking away from Patton, “Did you get my fruit basket?”
  * Virgil can’t see Roman from the angle he’s at. His back presses against Dee’s chest, and even with three layers of fabric between them Virgil can feel him breathe easy, like this situation is just another Tuesday, another Friday, another normal day at work, _fuck._
  * “The chocolate covered strawberries, right?” Roman calls back, “You know I’m allergic to strawberries.”
  * “Only the best for you, my dear,” Dee says missing the warmth entirely. 
  * “Is that why you got Remus Dukeson to try and kill me earlier?”
  * “I asked him to say hello!”
  * There’s a sound. Virgil thinks Remus tried to say something and Roman put more pressure on his chest.
  * “Since when do you employ assassins?”
  * Dee laughs. It sends shivers down Virgil’s spine. “Since when do you have dirty FBI agents in your pockets?”
  * “A boy has to have some secrets for himself, now, Little Snake!” Roman sounds like he’s grinning. “Or our day jobs would get so boring!”
  * “Indeed.”
  * “Truce, on three?”
  * “One.”
  * “Two.”
  * “Three.”
  * Dee doesn’t move and by the lack of noise outside the car, it doesn’t seem like Roman moved either.
  * “I’m severely disappointed in both of you.” Patton says.
  * Dee hisses at him. “As if I would truly give up my leverage against the three of you. I wasn’t born yesterday. And tell your police dog to get away from the door unless he’s forgotten how easy it is to kill someone who can’t move.”
  * “Logan, stand down,” Roman says quickly. 
  * Too quickly. 
  * Even Virgil’s sure of that. 
  * “Oh?” Dee hums. It rumbles deep in his chest. Virgil really wishes that Dee had slammed his face into the metal just a bit harder. “Is that a bit of a weakness I sense there, Romeo?”
  * “It might be,” Roman admits, “Do you care to test it, Scales? I assure you I do look dashing in red, _who-_ ever the shade is.”
  * They’re both quiet.
  * There’s nothing comforting in the fact. Its so tense that Virgil’s certain if he could breathe, he still wouldn’t be able to. 
  * Its the type of silence that tastes like tension, tastes like blood and sweat, tastes like stomach acid and salt tears. Its the type of silence that steals the light from the sun and the life from the tree and the calmness from the breeze. 
  * Its the type of silence that sounds like TV static right before a bomb goes off. 
  * “You’re surrounded and outnumbered, Dee Sanders.” Logan says from around the side of the car.
  * Dee snorts. “I am self preservation first, but collateral damage second. The only way that he walks out of here alive is, if I do too.”
  * Patton’s shoulders tense.
  * Virgil thinks that’s exactly what Dee wants to see; a confirmation of information that hadn’t yet been understood.
  * Virgil wonders if the lack of oxygen is catching up to him, but suddenly he understands a bit of what is going on: with the growing edges of black on his vision he can ignore the extra information coming to his brain, ignore the panic in his chest, ignore the way that Patton is standing three feet away from him, ignore the way the part of him that craves his oblivious college mentality back.
  * It makes room for the facts.
  * Roman Prince: Being hunted.
  * Logan Ackroyd: Dirty FBI agent. On Roman’s payroll.
  * Patton Pater: (best?) friend. one goal.
  * Dee Sanders: Being set up. Being hunted. Self preservation best all else.
  * Remus: Assassin. on Dee’s payroll.
  * For the first time since all of this has started, Virgil thinks that he’s finally figured out how to think like the rest of them.
  * Because he’s staring at the reflection of himself in Patton’s barely patched together frames and the entire situation makes complete sense to him.
  * It makes him want to laugh.
  * He does. 
  * It sounds pretty bad to his own ears.
  * He’s not surprised when Dee loosens his hold, when Patton is staring at him like he finally lost it, when Roman curses at him.
  * “F-fuck!” Virgil gasps. That toxin in his blood isn’t wearing off fast enough. Virgil can’t feel the inside of his mouth, his teeth, his tongue. 
  * “Kiddo–” Patton says.
  * “Oops! Looks like the kid cracked!” Remus sings, “Like an egg–”
  * “Shut up!” Roman snarls. “Dee, how are we ending this?”
  * Ending this? There’s an end?
  * Virgil thinks that’s hilarious.
  * “You’re all…” Virgil’s words pop between his tingling lips with tremendous efforts, “so stupid.”
  * Which is not the thing he should be saying to the guy who is literally holding a hand to Virgil’s permanent off button.
  * But
  * They’re playing a game of keep away where Virgil is the _fucking_ ball.
  * And none of them have realized–
  * not a single one–
  * He’s laughing enough that his entire vision goes black, and Dee is absolutely forced to go as loose as he can just so Virgil doesn’t loose consciousness completely. 
  * “Virgil!” Patton doesn’t dare take another step forward in case Dee does another bluff. 
  * That’s fine.
  * Everything’s fine.
  * Because Virgil thinks he’s almost got control on his knees and his elbows and his diaphragm and that’s enough. 
  * Because Virgil has got everyone’s attention and that’s exactly the way he needs it to be.
  * Because Virgil meets Patton’s eyes with an absolutely insane grin, “I know who killed Thomas Sanders.”




	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s right!” Remus calls, “I was very impres–ackkk!”
> 
> “Stop wasting oxygen,” Roman snarls down at him. “It’s making the trees die.”
> 
> “That is…Very incorrect.” Logan says.  
> ***  
> aka Truce? Truce.

  * The reaction is immediate.
  * Like _Immediate_ , immediate.
  * Like Patton takes a step back, Roman’s voice shrills, Logan touches the side door, Remus cackles and–
  * And Dee’s hold on his neck loosens the last centimeter that Virgil needs it to in shock.


  * Virgil is a normal college student. Well he used to be at least. The concept of normal feels like a fuzzy dream that Virgil can’t quite remember enough to tell anyone about.
  * Virgil is also the kid who’s mother fucked him over a couple millions times with physical touch. Between the phantom hair pulling and then memories of violent slapping and the inherent need for him to make himself smaller, Virgil’s normal college therapist had a lot to work with.
  * He doesn’t like touching, doesn’t like being close to people, doesn’t like the feeling of paper thin skin on skin or the burning heat between limbs.
  * And Dee pressed them pretty close together.
  * That’s why Virgil doesn’t really feel bad when in the confusion he flings his head back and clocks his cousin Dee Sanders straight in the face.
  * Dee jerks back with a howl and his arms curl viciously towards himself, but Virgil is quicker folding his feet to his butt and turning his spin to liquid.
  * his chin tilts up, his head back, and the handcuffs around his neck roll over his face and miss him entirely.
  * And _oh god is this what oxygen tastes like?_
  * Virgil doesn’t wait to take a second breath despite what his body is telling him he should do. He uses his feet to leverage himself across the back seat of the car and the discombobulated tumble of limbs ends up right in Patton’s arms.
  * Which at this point isn’t better than being in Dee’s. Virgil goes limp and Patton’s shock and surprise allows Virgil to hit the sweet, _sweet_ ground outside the police car.
  * Dee’s left hand is over his nose, his right twisted to cover his chin and both doing an absolutely terrible job of stopping the blood from pouring out of his nose. His curses are creative, Virgil would give him that.
  * Virgil would also flip him the bird if his hands weren’t still handcuffed and his limbs weren’t still tingling from being used even relatively.
  * “Little lying fuck–”
  * “Asshole,” Virgil spits out at him. “How the fuck would I know who killed the guy? I never met him!”
  * “That was a ruse?” Roman’s voice comes from somewhere else. He sounds unsure of himself, “Logan that was a ruse right?”
  * Said FBI agent is leaning on the door of the car by his shoulder and looking very worse for ware and honestly Virgil only feels a little bad for him.
  * “It appears so.” Logan says looking at Virgil.
  * Roman laughs, unexpectedly amused, “Oh I like him!” He applies pressure to the assassin under his foot, who Virgil can see is grinning at him with murder in his eyes.
  * “Naughty, naughty,” Remus coughs, “Dee say the word, and I’ll take care of him!”
  * If Dee hears him over his own miscellaneous cursing it really doesn’t show. His hands are covered in blood and he seems to be making a real effort to keep it off his clothes.
  * “Virge– Virgil,” Patton says squatting next to him. Virgil doesn’t need to have been his best friend for a decade in order to know that Patton is just barely resisting the urge to hug him.
  * Instead he brings out two paperclips and hovers himself behind Virgil. The hairs his wrists and the clicking noise tells him that the other boy is trying to get the handcuffs off. “Are you okay?”
  * “Fuck all of you,” Virgil says, rather lamely, “Especially Logan.”
  * _“Me?”_
  * “Yes you!” Virgil snarls at him, “What the hell was that?! Tasing me? Paralyzing me? Pretending to have killed two People? Pretending to want to kill me?!”
  * Logan blinks at him behind those square framed glasses, “I was in character,” He says slowly.
  * “Yeah, so far in character that the _actual assassin_ found a kindred spirit in you! Do you really not see anything wrong with this Mr I’m-not-paid-to-have-morals?!”
  * “He’s right!” Remus calls, “I was very impres–ackkk!”
  * “Stop wasting oxygen,” Roman snarls down at him. “It’s making the trees die.”
  * “That is…Very incorrect.” Logan says.
  * “I’ll put a bullet in your leg if you keep correcting me, Fractionator.”
  * Patton’s nose scrunches up at the comment. Virgil can’t tell if Roman is telling one of his jokes or if he’s really threatening the FBI agent: something about the sword in his hand and his foot on another persons throat and his general deposition as the heir to a mafia.
  * It seems that Dee chooses that time to try and gather the rest of his dignity up and shovel it back in to his pockets.
  * “Fine!” The leather clad boy snaps, “Your precious college puppy is free, Prince! Let my assassin go.”
  * “Oh darling,” Roman says. The sunlight paints him in an angelic aura, but his coy expression is straight from hell. “I do love when you beg to me, Sanders.”
  * Dee bashes his cuffed hands against the metal mesh of the back seat. He spits out some of his own blood and a handful of curses.
  * (If Virgil is honest he looks a lot more like his personality now: bloody and violent and not attractive in any way shape or—okay maybe a little attractive if you were into guys who were asshats, but Virgil’s not and Dee is his cousin so overall he’s not likable.)
  * Virgil hears a click amidst the two heirs baring their fangs at each other, and finds with a jolt that Patton had managed to get his hands uncuffed without a key from Logan. That was yet another skill Virgil didn’t know he had.
  * How many more of them were there?
  * Did Virgil want to know the rest of them?
  * “As of this moment you’ve got nothing, Dee,” Roman yells so loudly the birds in the trees chirp, “Call your assassin off, get out of the car, and we’ll see if I’m feeling like sparing both your lives today.”
  * Virgil thinks Roman should look different when he says that. He thinks that Roman should sound less like a pillar of trust or someone he can rely on or the guy that drove cars really fast and laughed when they were being shot at.
  * He doesn’t look different at all.
  * He’s still Roman, still full of that fire but somehow he made it icy: somehow he turned the threat of burns into the promise of frostbite.
  * Virgil’s seen this before, seen it in the bursts the of dual personality that he’s witnessed in the short time he’s been around Roman: His laugh when he told them to get in the car or die, his grin when he stepped between Logan and Virgil’s argument, when he’s standing there with a sword in his hand and his heel on the Power Off button of a human being.
  * Virgil catches Logan’s face, despite the fact he’s half hidden in a shadow. The crooked FBI agent isn’t looking too good and Virgil bets that’s why he’s avoided saying another word.
  * (It suits him, the gunshot wounds and the cut on his face and the gashes in his hand. He deserves them, Virgil thinks. Probably.)
  * “I want possession the gun,” Dee says. “And the handcuffs removed.”
  * The second part sounds like an afterthought.
  * Roman scoffs in disbelief, “No one falls for that trick twice–”
  * “ _Twice_?” Virgil cuts in, suddenly understanding why exactly Dee thinks he can still talk his way through negotiations with Roman. “That worked before?”
  * “Oh honey,” Dee says condescendingly.
  * Roman makes a noise in the back of his throat, “It was a very delicate situ–”
  * “I don’t actually care.” Virgil rubs his wrist, “Let them go.”
  * The clearing goes silent again. Silent in a way that makes Virgil want to rip his hair out.
  * Why are they all staring at him? Why weren’t they moving already?
  * Virgil splays his hands, “What?”
  * “Kiddo–” Patton says, “That’s a bad idea.”
  * “Despacito,” Virgil looks at Dee, “Update your Assassin on current events so we can _move on,_ will you _._ Roman let the– and I cannot believe I’m saying this but– murderer up. I need him. _”_
  * _“Despacito?”_ Dee looks offended at the moniker. Roman and Remus are exchanging equally confused looks.
  * “Pat,” Virgil stubbornly doesn’t look at his… ally. Patton straightens, and Virgil only sees it out of the corner of his eye.
  * (Patton, of course, is the only person Virgil knows he can put his back to. He has to keep an eye on the others because they might kill him, but Patton can’t, won’t, _wouldn’t_. )
  * ((Virgil knows that much.))
  * “Get me an Emergency First Aid Kit.”
  * “What, are you hurt?” Patton frets, his hands wave dangerously close, but not touching, ~~not touching, _not touching,_ thank god~~
  * “No,” Virgil bats one of the hands out of the air, which he thinks would be meaningless to anyone else, but to Patton its…its
  * Something. Probably.
  * Maybe. They don’t have that best friend telepathy going on anymore.
  * “Logan looks like he’s about to drop dead.” Virgil plows over the memories, “And I need him, too”
  * Roman lets out a chuckle. It sounds like he’s an audience member who isn’t understanding the joke on comedy night but doesn’t want to be rude.
  * Dee is staring at him, the dual color of his eyes make his left eye look brighter and his confusion almost tangible.
  * “Oh, okay!” Patton!! says!! brightly!!
  * Virgil thinks the other skips away based on the spacing of the steps that he can hear behind him.
  * “I don’t need your help,” Logan manages, right before he falls completely against the car, rolls off, and hits the ground.
  * “Logan!” Roman yells.
  * He’s distracted.
  * Remus is not.
  * Virgil doesn’t quite see what happens. Because _fuck the assassin is **fast.**_
  * Somehow he gets out from under Roman’s heel, kicks Roman’s sword into the bramble, and gets one of his shiny little shurikens. His arm curls back ignoring the blood all over his own shoulder and the dribbles that leak into his eyes.
  * Virgil can see death in the man’s eyes, excitement in his movements, fluidity of his movements. It doesn’t mean he can move in time for the assassin not to kill him.
  * “REMUS!”
  * The blade careens off target at the last moment. Virgil feels it blow by his ear, feels the wind wrack through his hair, feels the whisper of death giggle in his ear.
  * Dee is in front of him nearly before the blade is by Virgil.
  * (Its almost impressive– how did he climb out of a police car so swiftly, so gracefully with handcuffs on? Where did he practice that??)
  * Dee puts his back to Virgil
  * –which is a bold move considering how much Virgil would love to repay the earlier experience, but go off–
  * “I want him alive.” Dee says. “I want all of them alive.”
  * Roman, on the ground, swordless, and less-than-his-majestic-self, lets his jaw drop open.
  * “Are you sure, DeeDee?” Remus says. The mania is less now, Virgil thinks. An insane thought pops in to his, that maybe, maybe Remus wasn’t nearly as insane as he was pretending to be. “Even Prince?”
  * “Yes, of course, Prince too.”
  * “You literally sent me a deadly fruit basket!” Roman yells.
  * “I was teasing!”
  * “You’re a tease!”
  * Virgil thinks anyone who would ever want to get with Dee is insane on principal, so he vehemently disagrees with Roman’s…insult(????).
  * (It might not actually be an insult, based on the way that Dee’s relaxes and flicks his head to the side just enough for Virgil to his cocky half smirk)
  * Roman squints at Dee and Remus, but then he rolls over, palms one of Remus’s assorted shurikens and sprints towards the other side of the car where Logan has seen fit to pretend to be dead.
  * Or he’s not pretending.
  * Virgil flexes the rest of his limbs shaking off the numb of the paralysis the FBI agent had caused him. There are bruises forming all over his shoulder and upper arm where the metal mesh of the police car had collided with him, and the rings around his wrists from the handcuffs, not to mention the bumps from Dee and his tussle on the mountain side. He’s not bleeding though, which means hes– _ironically_ – doing better than the rest of the group of them.
  * A shadow falls over his body
  * Virgil looks up.
  * Theres a hand there, two actually because they’re handcuffed together.
  * Both are covered in blood still
  * “That ruse,” Dee says, “Was unexpectedly…smart of you.”
  * Virgil blinks up at him.
  * “Seriously, man, have you _ever_ talked to a normal person before?”
  * “Once. I don’t think they took to me very well.”
  * Virgil bats away his offered hands and gets up by himself. Dee doesn’t look nearly as offended as he did when Virgil called him Despacito. Remus watches them closely, though he’s pressing his ribs like he’s checking to see if Roman broke them earlier.
  * “What, did they try to kill you?” Virgil says as a throwaway comment. Patton appears back from wherever with a red cross box and he happily scoots where Roman is cooing at Logan like a mother hen.
  * Dee stares at him for a long moment, head tilted to the side.
  * “No,” He says finally, “I don’t think he will.”
  * Virgil shakes his head in absolute disbelief.
  * He can’t really believe that Dee was that type of sheltered. Its insane. They are two separate ends of a spectrum that probably shouldn’t exist:
  * Virgil who’s mother never let him out of her sight, lest he die of exposure to the sun at age eighteen, who’s mother had forbidden friends to the utmost, and tore up any sort of permission slip for clubs and awards. Virgil who was barely a person to be remembered, barely someone who could be missed at all, barely _someone_ at all. At least, in the eyes of the public and the law.
  * And on the other side, there was Dee who had been told his whole life he’ll be the one to take up after Thomas, who was groomed to be in control and confident, and who was not afraid of a blood in any capacity. He could probably talk circles around the people he worked with, but Virgil doubted he could hold his own at a college party.
  * Somehow they had to find a middle ground.
  * “Interesting,” Dee says, peering over the hood of the car, where Roman seems to be coaxing Logan into drinking from a water bottle while Patton checks over his gunshot wound and his scrapes.
  * Logan is really out of it. Virgil can tell because he actually degrades himself enough to give Dee the middle finger. When he opens his mouth to send out a scathing remark to match it, Roman shoves the entire water bottle lip in his mouth and grins as the other chokes.
  * “Sorry, whats that? You need help now, Logan?” Roman asks sweetly.
  * Patton hits the side of his arm, and guilts Roman into taking the bottle back with a stern Patton patented parental glare. 
  * Remus lies on the hood of the police car. His blood smears on the white paint, which delights him so much he uses the bit from his hands to draw a smiley face. “Look! Art!”
  * Roman filches through Logan’s pockets until he finds the keys to Dee’s handcuffs and then he throws them at Virgil.
  * ((Virgil flashes back to him tossing car keys at Virgil’s head, to before he knew that Patton was living a double life, before he knew that Logan was lying, before he knew that Dee wasn’t trying to kill him, before Remus had come back into the picture))
  * “It seems that you’re calling shots now, Fuchsia Freakout.” Roman tells him.
  * “Do you know what you’re doing?” Dee adds, holding out his cuffed hands for Virgil to work with.
  * “Not at all.” Virgil admits, “But neither do the rest of you, so…” He shrugs.
  * It takes him a moment to find the keyhole. Dee’s impatient about it, but holds his tongue.
  * “Listen,” Virgil says, “The way I see it, the only chance we have at finding who killed Thomas Sanders is by making sure we have each other’s backs. We’re in agreement that whoever the killer is, they’re also trying to get the three of us killed too right? They have to have significant influence in both the families, to have gotten close to Thomas to murder the guy, and then to convince the Sanders family to split. Then the assassins who came for Roman and I…they knew their way around, so someone had to given the layout of the building.
  * “Obviously since this person is going to such lengths to get rid of us, they need one or all of us dead. The best way to flush this person out is to not die.”
  * “Spoken like someone who likes living!” Remus puts in with a laugh, ”You tickle me Emo!”
  * “Yeah, well,” Virgil huffs as he finally gets the cuffs to unlock and they slip of Dee’s hands easily.
  * “I suppose to think you have a plan?” The boy asks. Patton, Logan, and Roman are all looking up at him now. Remus is painting something with his excess blood on the hood of the police car, but he’s obviously just waiting for Dee’s orders rather than listening to Virgil prattle on.
  * “I would suggest that we hide somewhere dark where no one with a gun will ever find us–”
  * “Vetoed,” Dee and Roman say together and then “Jinx! Double Jinx! Trip–”
  * “–BUT,” Virgil says over them, “I don’t think our problems will go away if we do that so my plan is the exact opposite.”
  * They go silent.
  * “Pardon?” Logan croaks, “I do not follow.”
  * Virgil twists his hands in his hoodie sleeves, deliberately not looking towards Patton, “We need to find out who is pulling the strings. So we need all of the families in one place and we need to– it would be– okay hear me out:
  * “Each of us possible heirs has one person at least that we trust with our lives, right? Dee and Remus, Logan and Roman, Me and–” He glances towards Patton but doesn’t actually see anything, “–me and Pat. We know for a fact that these people won’t sell us out or try to kill us right? And that they likely have a reason when they do extremely stupid things–”
  * “You could just apologize to the guy, Virgil,” Roman points out, “He’s sitting right here.”
  * “–This like the ultimate trust fall game.” Virgil sums up, “Trust that your person has your back and that we the person who killed Thomas won’t be able to resist an attempt to take all three of us out at once.”
  * Its quiet.
  * Virgil doesn’t dare look at Patton.
  * But he can see Logan sluggishly thinking it over, probably doing math calculations (because even if he had been lying about being an accountant before, Virgil doesn’t think he’s half bad at calculating odds) and Roman is waiting for him to be done before he says anything.
  * “It…” Logan says, “It would be very efficient to figuratively “smoke out” the real culprit.” He looks at Roman for a long moment .“I would be willing to execute it.”
  * Roman shakes his head, “You’ve got a death wish, Lolo!”
  * “Aren’t you the one always telling me to “live a little”?”
  * “There’s an good change of a bloodbath, too!” Remus adds, “Can we go Dee? Please? Pretty please? I’ll do your next two assassinations requests for free!”
  * “How can I say no to that?” Dee rolls his eyes.
  * Virgil glances towards Patton, towards the grass by his feet, towards the first aid kits he’s meticulously putting away, towards his chest.
  * The Silence is loud.Virgil doesn’t think it has a right to be so loud.
  * “Pat?” He asks, softly.
  * “I think its silly you even have to ask,” Patton says, like his face isn’t still bruised from the debacle in Roman’s kitchen, like his glasses aren’t been held together with tape, like absolutely nothing has changed in the past two days. He smiles up at Virgil, “You’re my best friend Vee! Of course I’ll go for you!”
  * Relief swells in him.It’s _sweet_ and _lovely_ and _freeing_.
  * Virgil knows they have more to talk about. Because he’s still upset at Patton, and Patton was still hurt by him, and neither of them have apologized.
  * But this is just proof of how exceptionally _bad_ they are at fighting with each other. They haven’t had much experience in the matter, haven’t had _any_ experience in the matter.
  * “G-good. Thanks,” Virgil says. There’s a flicker of excitement in his expression. He thinks it passes quickly, but obviously it wasn’t quick enough:
  * Dee cracks a smile at him, covered in semi dried blood from a nosebleed and the gravel/metal mesh teamup on the side of his face, and the two different colored eyes.
  * “Careful, Virge,” Dee says, “One might think you’re starting to enjoy this.”




End file.
